194 SMART Foodscapes: Advancing sustainable beef production in Western U.S

Strategies that enhance plant community diversity promote heterogeneity in chemical, structural and functional landscape traits, offering foraging options that improve nutrition, reduce environmental impacts, and support livestock health. Bioactive compounds such as tannins can mitigate methane emissions, improve nitrogen balance, and enhance antioxidant status. To leverage these benefits, diverse legumes, forbs and shrubs rich in nutrients and functional phytochemicals are being integrated into resource patches or “islands” within a “sea” of grass-dominated rangelands. These islands serve as a cost-effective supplementation strategy to enhance biodiversity and improve the sustainability of beef production systems. We are evaluating native and introduced plant species for establishment and persistence across different ecosites in Utah. Using continuous culture fermenters, we evaluate how these forages and their interactions influence rumen fermentation, microbial growth, methane production, and nutrient digestibility. Additionally, modelling efforts explore the effects of strategic legume inclusion on cattle performance and environmental footprint. Our findings suggest that incorporating 15-20% legumes, allocated monthly, optimizes performance while reducing methane emissions and nitrogen excretion per unit of production. Based on in vitro and modelling results, strips of sainfoin, small burnet, forage kochia, birdsfoot trefoil, and alfalfa are being strategically deployed within grasslands to evaluate their impact on enteric methane emissions, nitrogen losses, and grazing behavior in beef cattle. These foodscapes are also being tested for their effects on pollinator, mammalian and avian wildlife habitat. This transdisciplinary project is progressing to create more sustainable beef production systems while engaging and educating current and future land stewards.