Answers to grazing or exclusion can be characterized by functional types?

Abstract

The study was conducted at the Forage Research Center of FEPAGRO, São Gabriel, RS, using an area of native pasture, from January 1998 to December 2000. The objective of this research was to define the plant functional types to the particular assessed environment. The experiment design was splitplot arranged in randomized blocks, with three replications. The treatments, grazed and not grazed areas, were allocated to the main plots and different fertilization levels (with and without NPK) were allocated to the subplots. Plots were grazed by cattle, horse and sheep from January 1998 and the fertilizer was applied annually from February 1994 to February 1996. The ungrazed plots were excluded from grazing in December 1996. Plant height, consistency and adaxial surface of the leaf lamina are characteristics that represent the grazed and ungrazed environments.