Estimating Long-Term Forage Production on Rangelands

Abstract We describe a method of estimating forage production on rangelands which could be of great value to rangeland managers. Input data are limited to widely available NOAA weather observations. We employed a complementary hypothesis between actual and potential evapotranspiration to estimate actual evapotranspiration. A linear relationship between water use and forage production was used to estimate forage production. Predictions were compared with data from four different rangeland types in the western U.S.