For the economic exploitation of animal production in pastureland, it is essential to understand the morphophysiological responses of plants and animals to environment and management conditions, so that production can be efficient. This recommendation becomes more important in intensive pasture systems. In Brazil, especially in the Southeast, Midwest, North and Northeast regions, there is a predominance of tropical forage species, characterized by high dry matter production. However, problems such as seasonality of forage production and impaired pasture structure, as caused by rapid stem elongation and accumulation of senescent material, directly affect pasture utilization and, consequently, animal performance and productivity. Among the grasses used in intensive systems is elephantgrass ( Pennisetum purpureum), which in addition to having high forage production potential, also stands out for its nutritional value. However, the use of the traditional cultivars of this species under grazing is hindered by the rapid elongation of the stem that leads to loss of efficiency in forage utilization and the need for frequent mowing. Since 1992, Embrapa Dairy Cattle has been coordinating the elephantgrass breeding program, seeking, among other aspects, a cultivar characterized by small plants adapted to grazing. Many reports in the literature emphasize the importance of evaluating the performance of new materials under conditions close to or equal to those that will be exposed in practice. Thus, two dwarf elephantgrass clones selected by the Embrapa Dairy Cattle’s breeding program (respectively, CNPGL 92-198-7 and CNPGL 00-1-3) were evaluated under intermittent stocking with two post-grazing canopy heights (respectively, 30 and 50 cm) and two defoliation intervals. The criterion for animals to enter the paddock (defoliation interval) was based on the interception of 90 or 95% of the incident radiation by the forage canopy. The following variables were estimated: regrowth period in each treatment, forage production, pasture structure, forage nutritive value, forage loss, efficiency of pasture use and animal behavior while grazing. Clone CNPGL 00-1-3 was poorly adapted to grazing, showing higher pasture height in pre-grazing (for both combinations of post-grazing herbage heights and defoliation intervals), slow regrowth, lower leaf-stem ratio and as a consequence lower forage nutritive value. These results grounded the removal of such clone from the selection process of the breeding program. Clone CNPGL 92-198-7, in turn, exhibited higher daily forage accumulation rate, high regrowth rate, with an average resting period necessary to reach the condition of 22 days of grazing, high proportion of leaves in the forage produced, and high digestibility of the forage with high protein content. The data generated by this project were decisive for the definition of the management of clone CNPGL 92-187-7 that came to be released in 2012 as the small-height cultivar BRS Kurumi. For the management of such cultivar under rotational stocking, it is recommended animal entry in the paddock to occur when the pasture reaches a height of 80 cm and animal removal from the paddock to be carried out when such height averages 35-40 cm.