You asked.
Soil:
Soil is whatever dirt/substrate stuff you have on the ground. If you have done much gardening, either in pots or in the ground, you know that all of the components that are in that soil, or lacking from the soil, will GREATLY change how well your plants grow, how healthy they are, how nutrient rich the plants are, as well as how easily that soil holds onto water. That soil information tells you how fast your grass will regrow, what weeds will give you nightmares, the best most nutrient rich plants that your soil is capable of growing, and what supplements if any you will need to give your livestock. It is IMPORTANT if your livestock is living primarily from stuff that they eat off of your land.
All of the lower 48 have soil maps, (I don't think Alaska is complete). You can get soil maps to look at for free at your local extension office. Some places will let you see them online for free.
At least in Texas, each soil type is labled as to how many acres per cow are possible on that soil type. I now can't remember if the acres per cow that is listed is for the range in excellent or good condition. At any rate, the number of acres per cow (some times just listed as acres per animal unit or AU which equals one hereford cow with a young calf), is a starting point, NOT what you actually have in real life.
The next step is to go to the property, and do a "step count survey". Walk across the property, and write down what plant is closest to the point of your right boot, every time you take a step.
Simple. However, you want to walk first across the area right next to water (might be just dirt), then do a step count where the plants start growing decently, and then do another step count where there is only a little animal sign.An arial photo is best at this point, you can usually see the difference in grazing pressure just by color on the arial photo. Draw lines where the color changes, make sure you had a step count survey for each area.... And there you go!
You can now, with lovely math, or a fancy computer program and a single button click, figure out how many acres are in each area that you outlined, and now that you know what is growing in each area.... You can fine tune that acres per cow number, so it is now a REAL LIFE NUMBER, that actually applies to you.
There are several things that you can do to trick the cattle to not make such a dead zone about the water, and make them walk farther away from the water to spread out grazing. Moving where the shade spots are, and where the salt block is located helps to spread out the cattle.
Rangeland is grazing land that is not intensively managed.
Pastureland is grazing land that is intensively managed, pretty much a farm field that is planted in grass, USUALLY a non-native grass, and is often but not always both fertilized and irrigated.
Most people with a small bit of land, say 3 or 5 acres, have all of their land as some form of pastureland.
I guess all of the above was soil information and understanding why the number of acres needed per cow can vary from 100 acres or so a cow, all the way down to 1 acre for a cow.
I didn't go over the plants.
Plants are stuck into different categories.
Decreasers are the plants that cattle love, the "ice cream" plants. Cattle will search for them, and eat them first. If you are not careful in your management, these plants will decrease in number very quickly, and then disapear. These are usually the most nutrient rich plants.
Increasers are the plants that are naturally present in the environment, but usually in low numbers. With grazing pressure, the Increasers will increase in number and take over where the Decreasers have disapeared or reduced in number. If grazing pressure continues, the Increasers will then start to decrease. Increasers are usually not as nutritious as the Decreasers.
Invaders are the plants that were not in the area before grazing started (this does not mean only plants from other countries, it includes native plants that just aren't growing where they are supposed to). They are often the poisonous weeds. They are always plants that your grazing animals hate.
In some Rangelands, the nutrients of the rangeland doesn't fall too badly when you start to loose the Decreasers, but the wildlife will be hit hard. Different bunch grasses are often Decreasers. Bunch grasses have trouble standing up to grazing pressure. Bunch grasses are THE best nesting habitat for all ground dwelling birds. Also, bunch grasses create little sheltered corridors for Quail to run through which results in more quail reaching adulthood.
Talking of nutrients... I have always been fascinated by the fact that a cow loosing her unborn calf is much more likely in rainy East Texas verses dry West Texas. The reason is that all of that sandy soil with little organic matter results in the rain washing many nutrients out of both the grass and the soil. The older a blade of grass is, over in East Texas, the lower its nutrient value. In West Texas, it sure is hard to get that grass to grow, but the mineral rich soil of West Texas packs the grass that does grow full of nutrients. Not only that, but the lack of rain means that grass that stands dead out on the range for MONTHS, has excellent nutrients!
What can I tell you..... Range is my thing.
