We recently had a question from a producer wondering how many cattle one can put on an acre of irrigated and non-irrigated grazing land in Middle Park.  

Our wise conservation technician, Mark Volt, had this to say,

There is no one size fits all answer.

It depends on several on site factors including: soils, aspect,exiting forage species, irrigation water (availability, amount and timing ), fencing & grazing intensity, temperature, rain and growing season variation, past grazing history, and more.

In general though, it’s not the number of cows per acre; IT IS THE NUMBER OF ACRES PER COW. A lot of rangeland is 5-20 acres/AUM (animal unit month). “Good” irritated pasture is ~2 acres/AUM. Good irrigated pasture is a relative term, though.  It depends on species diversity, proper irrigated water management practices, and other factors.

A good info sheet about stocking rates and carrying capacity is this one: 

Determining Carrying Capacity and Stocking Rates for Range and Pasture in North Dakota R1810