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Title:   Author  item
                                            O Neill, Katherineitem
                                            Halvorson, Jonathanitem
                                            Jimenez Esquilin, Aidaitem
                                            Feldhake, Charlesitem
                                            Godwin, Harry
  Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
                                    Publication Type: Abstract Only
                                    Publication Acceptance Date: 12/20/2007
                                    Publication  Date: N/A
                                    Citation: N/AInterpretive Summary:
                                Technical Abstract: Silvopastoral management attempts to optimize the biophysical interactions between pasture grasses, trees, and grazing animals to increase the productivity, efficiency, and sustainability of the entire system.  Determining how best to space and thin trees within mixed hardwood silvopastures to provide for sufficient forage production and adequate soil nutrition requires detailed knowledge of resource capture, allocation, and distribution across system components.  This study integrates chemical, biophysical, and microbiological/microfaunal assessments with spatial models to address the following questions: (1) What is the zone-of-influence of individual trees on soil properties relevant to forage production?; (2) At what spatial and temporal scale should soils be sampled to adequately quantify the patchiness resulting from uniform and non-uniform tree distributions?; and, (3) How can we incorporate knowledge about tree-derived spatial heterogeneity into soil management practices and risk assessment for silvopastoral systems?  The utility of individual soil variables for management, monitoring, and/or risk assessment depends largely upon the process and the scale of interest.  Understanding how soil properties vary in response to tree-forage interactions is a critical first step to developing sampling strategies that allow managers to better synchronize patterns of nutrient availability with the needs of forage and livestock production.


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