Native pasture management is good for cattle, for farmers, and for the environment. Maintaining native grasses provides food diversity for the animals and climate resilience. Native wetland pastures are high quality and need less inputs for beef cattle production, which provides an invaluable environmental service. Cattle farmers in Pantanal now have a guide to grasses that are native to the biome, which contains descriptions of plants and management recommendations aimed at environmental sustainability and sustainability in cattle farming, the main economic activity in the region. The publication is supported by the Foundation to Support the Development of Education, Science and Technology in Mato Grosso do Sul State (Fundect). “This is the second publication about forage grasses in Pantanal”, informs animal scientist Sandra Santos, a researcher at Embrapa Pantanal. “Pantanal is a very complex biome in its vegetation”, says the Embrapa researcher. For over 30 years in the corporation, Santos has investigated the characteristics and uses of native pastures in the Pantanal biome, which in some ecosystems can achieve high quality, yield and stocking rates. “The challenge is to explore pastures that have high levels of proteins and minerals, high resistance, and adaptability to the Pantanal environment [especially in comparison with exotic species]”, she states. The scientist informs that the guide highlights the benefits of conserving native pastures, especially those in wetlands. She explains that they are nutritionally rich plants that the animals prefer. If they are found in a rural property, it is recommended that they are maintained through a type of sustainable management often called on-farm management . “If there is no proper management, the cattle could prefer them over others and cause overgrazing, which may terminate the seed bank and degrade the pasture, which is only recovered with interventions”, Santos details. “We need to conserve these native pastures because of the incredible heritage of renewable resources that they are. Maintaining this heterogeneity is advantageous for farmers, who need to learn about the good assets they have their farms in order to better plan the use of forage resources.” Cattle protect biome from fire Santos points out that the importance of beef cattle for the Pantanal goes beyond the economic field: it also plays an important environmental role. “Maintaining native pastures makes the producer able to have productivity, heterogeneous environments and helps to conserve the environment with sustainability”, she says. “The biome's landscape was shaped by cattle. Without it, the fields are uncleared and the increase in phytomass [plant mass] in several phytophysiognomies [types of vegetation] can favor large wildfires. The animals perform this service through the intense grazing of wetlands, and this helps to form natural barriers, in addition to making these environments heterogeneous and rich in plant diversity. ” According to the researcher, Pantanal is a mosaic of landscapes with humid, intermediate and dry areas. “We have areas of fields, savannas and forests. Although in forested areas cattle may consume some species of plants to supplement the diet (especially in terms of minerals), such supplementation does not meet all animal needs. But it is interesting to have this diversity: when we are able to work with the heterogeneity that the Pantanal has, we can offer a very rich and resilient diet for cattle, while conserving habitats for other animal and plant species,” she reveals. Floods are responsible for modifying and maintaining the dynamics of pastures in wet and seasonal areas every year. The biome has higher and lower altitudes, as well as places that are affected by floods either from river overflows or strictly from rain. For the researcher, farms affected only by rainfall are better for livestock because, in most cases, cattle can remain in the property all year round. “Those that are flooded by the river generally need another farm to manage between the upper and lower parts during extreme floods.” She clarifies, however, that the integrated management between high and low farm sections is interesting in the areas with more clayey soils to favor giving pastures a break and thus avoid continuous trampling, which causes compaction and likely degradation. In a region with so many landscapes and variations, it is expected that the carrying capacity for livestock - which in general is around 3.6 hectares per cattle - also varies considering the location of the property, year and period. “When the lower areas dry up, they have greater availability of pasture because the high-quality native ones are usually in such wetlands. It is a soil that has a higher content of organic matter from nutrient cycling". Hence the diversity of pastures favors balanced animal diets and ensures that they have food at different times and environmental conditions. However, the scientist points out that not all properties have native wetland pasture ecosystems. Using native forage grasses In humid locations around water bodies, the researcher recommends that a replacement by exotic pastures should not be performed due to the high quality of the native species present. In this case, Santos says, the most advantageous for farmers is to identify the native forage species that exist in their property and, then, do everything possible to favor the development of seed banks, ensuring that they are maintained (both due to their high nutritional value and the different ecosystem services that such grasses offer). This management will provide greater carrying capacity and savings in food supplements. “When the species are available, or there are consecutive years of drought, we have to manage them so that the best quality native grasses, which are preferred by cattle, can sow and regenerate without the need for external inputs. If a given property loses their seed bank for these species, we can try to enrich it by throwing more seeds in the place, usually using mixes that suit the conditions of that environment. But then the cost is higher - in addition to seeds, we have to put in labor. It is more economical to do good management to maintain them instead.” Another limiting factor is that in the market there are no native forage seeds specifically for such areas. As a simple method to manage heterogeneous and extensive areas, the researcher suggests dividing the pastures into three areas for each herd. “With two of them you can make an annual management, while the third is closed for the whole year. Some species need a year to recover”, she describes. “In the dry season, we would work with two open areas; in the rainy season, we ban the most degraded one so that it will recover - the recovery time varies depending on the rains. The following year, we close the one that is in the worst condition for an entire year and work with the other two.” This is a simple initial strategy that can be improved over time, considering the specificities of key forage grasses. The scientist says that farmers can also save money, delimiting large areas for herds and reducing costs with fences, by working with mosaics. “We are also investigating the possibility of prescribed burning and grazing, associated with the estimation of the carrying capacity according to the types of pastures available. Some species need grazing, otherwise they disappear, while the opposite happens with others.” However, burning would be used only as a last option, that is, when another sustainable management practice is not available. Maintaining moderate stocking rates is ideal, according to the expert, so that there is a cycling of nutrients. Associating forage species can also be a way of enriching the animals' diet, especially in flood-free and very poor areas, as well as using several animal species in a pasture.