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Forage Utilization Estimated By Height-Weight And Grazed-Plant Methods, Joann Clark

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Determining utilization has been one of the most difficult tasks required of range scientists down through the years (Pieper 1973). Utilization is defined as the portion of the current year's growth of the plant that the animal consumes or destroys. For this reason it is difficult to measure utilization because you are trying to measure something that no longer exists.

Numerous methods have been developed for determining utilization. Some methods are rapid while others are more detailed and time consuming, but may give greater accuracy.

This study was done to see how well utilization estimates made by the grazed-plant method …