The reasoning behind the interpretations given for the five monitoring scenarios in part 3 under “Monitoring Your Land” is as follows:
Decreasing bare ground is good, with broken soil increasing and mature capping down—all this suggests a fair amount of animal impact. Litter increasing is good and could be due to the animal impact that has increased since last year. But the fact that plant spacing has not changed while old oxidizing grass has disappeared suggests that animal impact is still low (and partial rest is still too high). The land is improving but slower than planned for and needs action.
Bare ground increasing while mature capping decreases, broken soil increases (both indicating some effectiveness of animal impact), and litter decreases is not good. Erosion could well increase. Plant spacing decreasing suggests effective animal impact. No overgrazing or overresting is good. The overall probability here is that the stocking rate is too high, but all else seems to be in line with plans. Overstocking is indicated by disappearance of litter, as livestock have probably eaten it.
Bare ground decreasing ties in with broken soil increasing while mature capping decreases and litter increases. The increase in litter will be assisted by both closer plant spacing and an increasing number of grass plants, and all seems to be in line with the planned changes.
No change in bare soil, mature capping, broken soil, or plant spacing suggests inadequate animal impact or too high a degree of partial rest. That this is combined with an increase in overrested plants and new weeds or forbs suggests that the stocking rate is also too low.
Decreasing bare ground, mature capping, and plant spacing all suggest that animal impact has been effective. Litter increasing also ties in with the effectiveness of the animal impact being applied. However, it is disturbing that some plants are showing visible signs of overgrazing while others are overresting and that weeds are increasing. These signs indicate that the manager either has started to rotate the livestock or, if he is still planning the grazing, has not been paying attention to recovery periods and daily plant growth rates.