Weight gain and vegetation preference of cattle grazing semi-natural pastures with different grazing regimes

The aim was to develop grazing regimes that combined the preservation of biodiversity in semi-natural grasslands with maintained animal production in circumstances where, in the future, there might be a shortage of grazing animals. A long-term multidisciplinary experiment was started to compare a conventional grazing regime with two alternatives, one in which fewer animals maintain the same area of grassland (grazing every second year), and other that promotes biodiversity of late-flowering species (late grazing). Three experimental years have been completed with the three grazing regimes using 23-29 steers. The weight gains of animals during the first two experimental years were similar in the three treatment groups, between 0.59 and 0.64 kg animal-1 day-1, but a lower weight gain of 0.47 kg animal?1 day?1 was observed in the late grazing group during the third year.