From the Field: The Potential Value of a Decision Support Tool Informing Dynamic Stocking Rate Decisions on Rangelands in the Inland Pacific Northwest

This report summarizes insights from listening sessions with rangeland managers, agency staff, Tribal representatives, and livestock industry stakeholders across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The discussions explored current approaches to determining livestock stocking rates, challenges associated with year-to-year variability in forage production, and the potential value of a decision-support tool that could support more flexible grazing management.

Participants described several common methods used to estimate forage production and stocking rates, including personal experience, reference datasets such as NRCS soil surveys, and field sampling methods. However, they also highlighted limitations in these approaches, particularly in capturing spatial variability and interannual fluctuations in forage availability. Participants expressed strong interest in tools that could integrate remote sensing data and long-term datasets to better quantify variability in forage production across landscapes and over time.

Insights from these discussions informed early development concepts for a dynamic stocking rate decision-support tool intended to help ranchers and land managers make strategic and tactical grazing management decisions.

This work was supported by the USDA Northwest Climate Hub, USDA Great Plains Climate Hub, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (McIntire-Stennis project WNP00009), and the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.