I encountered this when doing my master’s thesis. The data showed higher cattle use in very low density forest than in completely open areas. I wanted to follow that up to see why. I wondered if a bit of shade helped the forage stay green longer.
I can tell you from my lawn that the grass under my Texas trees stays green longer and grows faster than the direct-sun grass. I think your hypothesis is worth exploring.
What grass variety?
St. Augustine, which isn’t technically a grass, I suppose.
Silvopasture is an ancient practice that integrates trees and pasture into a single system for raising livestock. Pastures with trees sequester five to 10 times as much carbon as those of the same size that are treeless while maintaining or increasing productivity and providing a suite of additional benefits. Livestock continue to emit the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, but these are more than offset by carbon sequestration, at least until soil carbon saturation is achieved.
Silvopasture also offer financial benefits for farmers and ranchers. Livestock, trees, and other forest products, such as nuts, fruit, and mushrooms, generate income on different time horizons. And help protect farmers from risk. The health and productivity of both animals and the land improve.
https://drawdown.org/solutions/silvopasture
Trees in silvopasture systems provide livestock with protection from sun and wind, which can increase animal comfort and improve production. Trees can provide shade in the summer and windbreaks in the winter, allowing livestock to moderate their own temperature. Heat stress in livestock has been associated with decreased feed intake, increased water intake, and negative effects on production, reproductive health, milk yields, fitness, and longevity.[4][5]
Certain tree types can also serve as fodder for livestock. Trees may produce fruit or nuts that can be eaten by livestock while still on the tree or after they have fallen. The leaves of trees may serve as forage as well, and silvopasture managers can utilize trees as forage by felling the tree so that it can be eaten by livestock, or by using coppicing or pollarding to encourage leaf growth where it is accessible to livestock.[1]
Well-managed silvopasture systems can produce as much forage as open-pasture systems under favorable circumstances. Silvopasture systems have also been observed to produce forage of higher nutritive quality than non-silvopasture forage under certain conditions. Increased forage availability has been observed in silvopasture systems compared to open-pasture systems under drought conditions, where the combination of shade from trees and water uptake from tree roots may reduce drought impacts.[1]
I just yesterday passed a bunch of fields in Germany near München that were full of solar panels with sheep underneath. Thought it was a great idea
Because wool is not for humans to use
I’m all for the humane treatment of animals, but domestic sheep need to be sheared or they end up like Baarack here. Meanwhile, wool is a sustainable textile source, unlike synthetic fibers.
If we want domestic sheep to live good lives, it requires humans embracing sustainable practices quickly to address the climate crisis.
Guess they prefer microplastics.
These people always neglect to mention that their endgame is the complete genocide of all domesticated animals since they literally cannot survive on their own without human caretaking, almost like we’ve evolved a symbiotic relationship with these creatures and trying to end that relationship because you personally find it morally objectionable will have disastrous consequences for huge parts of the entire world’s biosphere…well except Antarctica, those penguins couldn’t care less if the cows are being wiped out because “uNnAtUrAl!!!”
ETA, you can tell these people are totally not eco fascists because they didn’t dispute the charge of wanting to exterminate entire clades of the tree of life, they just started justifying it by ranting about why “the bad ones” “totally deserve it” because pregarnart. I’m sure you wouldn’t find any genocidal dictator in recent history who has conjured the image of a barefoot and pregnant member of “the bad ones” to rant about how they’re producing too many children, or that “the nation” isn’t keeping pace enough, to rile a scare out of their audience, nosiree!
Nevermind how their position also involves exterminating service animals for also being domesticated, and fuck their disabled owners for “defying nature” or “being abusers”, that epileptic who needs help calling medical assistance should have thought about how it makes some internet weirdo feels to see dogs doing things before they tried being allowed to live despite their condition!
Surely there exists a space between us breeding, mass murdering and torturing domestic animals with cruel factory farming on the one hand, and wiping them off the face of the earth on the other.
Wouldn’t you say that both extremes constitute disastrous consequences for huge parts of the entire world’s biosphere?
Are we still talking about sheep that grass all day under the shade of solar panels?
Even the staunchest hippie wears whool.
I don’t think we are - the previous comment is talking about the total genocide of all domesticated animals, which seems beyond sheep under solar panels.
Meat cows specifically should be wiped out for their methane production being so high. I’ve heard that if we managed to stop beef consumption we’d have something like a 10% decrease in emissions just from that alone.
It would actually probably be more than that if you’re talking global demand. So much deforestation is due to cattle (typically the land needed for their feed), not to mention repurposing some existing land used for cattle feed for human food.
Plus, all that feed needs to be transported, which influences the shipping industry.
I think they mean that animals are not for us to use.
Well it’s too late for that, we already changed these animals to be unable to to live without us.
Well, stop breeding them. Solved.
Sheep genocide! Woohoo!
Even if we stop, what do we do with the ones we still have? Sanctuaries for millions of animals are far too expensive.
How about we keep shearing them and let them graze under our solar?
You can’t, and I’m not recommending, get rid of sheep overnight. That’s a scenario you made up on your own.
If you would castrate all domestic sheep today, that would be akin to what we do to cats and dogs. Slowly the population would dwindle.
that is genocide
Sheep have been domesticated for over 10,000 years and require regular shearing to continue living, otherwise their wool will overgrow and they eventually won’t be able to eat or move.
Because humans breed them to be dependent on us.
Yes, for over 10,000 years. It sounds like you think we should kill all domesticated sheep…
Nah that’s a strawman, I think the sheep should be in sanctuaries instead.
Underneath solar panels for green energy and regularly sheared for comfort?
