The Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network: Cross-site transdisciplinary science to support a sustainable and resilient agriculture.

The Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network is a collaborative initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, aimed at advancing sustainable, resilient agriculture through coordinated research conducted on croplands, grazing lands, and integrated crop/livestock systems.

The LTAR Grazing Land Common Experiment at the Jornada Experimental Range: Old genetics, new precision technologies, and adaptive value chains.

Rangelands and the supply chains connected to them are central to the agrifood systems of the Southwestern United States. Local ranchers are simultaneously arid lands managers, herd managers, and marketing managers. To stay in business, they must adapt to unpredictable forage resources and markets while conserving soils and vegetation resources for the long term.

Behavioral Adaptations of Nursing Brangus Cows to Virtual Fencing: Insights from a Training Deployment Phase.

Virtual fencing systems have emerged as a promising technology for managing the distribution of livestock in extensive grazing environments. This study provides comprehensive documentation of the learning process involving two conditional behavioral mechanisms and the documentation of efficient, effective, and safe animal training for virtual fence applications on nursing Brangus cows. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) animals would learn to avoid restricted zones by increasing their use of containment zones within a virtual fence polygon, and (2) animals would progressively receive fewer audio-electric cues over time and increasingly rely on auditory cues for behavioral modification.

Real-Time Monitoring of Grazing Cattle Using LORA-WAN Sensors to Improve Precision in Detecting Animal Welfare Implications via Daily Distance Walked Metrics.

Animal welfare monitoring relies on sensor accuracy for detecting changes in animal well-being. We compared the distance calculations based on global positioning system (GPS) data alone or combined with motion data from triaxial accelerometers. The assessment involved static trackers placed outdoors or indoors vs.

Factors important for bull purchasing decisions and management in extensive rangeland production systems of New Mexico: a producer survey.

There were 463,000 head of beef cows in New Mexico as of January 1, 2021 (NASS, 2020), down roughly 4% from 2020 (NASS, 2019). Frequent drought often results in herd reduction and loss of valuable genetic progress. Bull selection is critical due to their influence on herd development.

Distribution of livestock sectors in Canada: Implications for manureshed management.

Canada's livestock production and human populations are concentrated in southern regions. Understanding spatial and temporal distributions of animals and excreted nutrients is key to optimizing manure resources and minimizing impact of livestock. Here, we identify manureshed concerns and opportunities by reconciling nitrogen supply and demand on a regional and national scale.

Evaluating water quality benefits of manureshed management in the Susquehanna River Basin.

Manureshed management guides the sustainable use of manure resources by matching areas of crop demand (nutrient sinks) with areas generating livestock manure (nutrient sources). A better understanding of the impacts of manureshed management on water quality within sensitive watersheds is needed. We quantified the potential water quality benefits of manureshed-oriented management through scenario-based analyses in the Susquehanna River Basin (SRB) using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool.

Envisioning the manureshed: Toward comprehensive integration of modern crop and animal production.

The specialization and intensification of agriculture have produced incredible gains in productivity, quality, and availability of agricultural commodities but have resulted in the separation of crop and animal production. A by-product of this separation has been the accumulation of manure regions where animal production is concentrated. Enter the "manureshed," an organizing framework for integrating animal and crop production where budgeting of manure nutrients is used to strategically guide their recycling and reuse in agricultural production systems where manure resources are of highest value.

Challenges and opportunities for manureshed management across U.S. dairy systems: Case studies from four regions.

The manureshed represents cropland needed to safely assimilate manure nutrients from an animal feeding operation. Dairy manuresheds can be contained on-farm but may need to involve additional farms that can assimilate excess nutrients. We present case studies reviewing challenges and opportunities to manureshed management in four major dairy-producing states using available information on local manuresheds.

Opportunities to implement manureshed management in the Iowa, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania swine industry.

The U.S. swine industry is diverse, but opportunities exist to strategically improve manure management, especially given much of the industry's vertical integration.

The social networks of manureshed management.

Manureshed management-the strategic use of manure nutrients that prioritizes recycling between livestock systems and cropping systems-provides a comprehensive framework for sustainable nutrient management that necessitates the collaboration of many actors. Understanding the social dimensions of collaboration is critical to implement the strategic and technological requirements of functional manuresheds. To improve this understanding, we identified aspirational networks of actors involved in manureshed management across local, regional, and national scales, principally in the United States, elucidating key relationships and highlighting the breadth of interactions essential to successful manureshed management.

Land use change and collaborative manureshed management in New Mexico.

Agricultural communities of New Mexico regularly redistribute manure nutrients from dairies to nearby croplands to fulfill agronomic nutrient needs and protect water quality. Yet competition for water resources can result in land use change that affects these cooperative manure transfers. Focusing on three clusters of New Mexico dairy farms and their surrounding lands (three manuresheds), we calculated the magnitude of land use changes in 2008-2019 and the balance between manure nutrient supply and crop demand in 2019 to assess how past change may predict future prospects for sustainable management.

Poultry manureshed management: Opportunities and challenges for a vertically integrated industry.

Manureshed management seeks to address systemic imbalances in nutrient distributions at scales beyond the farmgate and potentially across county and state boundaries. The U.S.

Applying ecological site concepts and state-and-transition models to a grazed riparian rangeland.

Ecological sites and state-and-transition models are useful tools for generating and testing hypotheses about drivers of vegetation composition in rangeland systems. These models have been widely implemented in upland rangelands, but comparatively, little attention has been given to developing ecological site concepts for rangeland riparian areas, and additional environmental criteria may be necessary to classify riparian ecological sites. Between 2013 and 2016, fifteen study reaches on five creeks were studied at Tejon Ranch in southern California.