Talk:Grazing

Agriculture Mid‑importance

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Ecology Mid‑importance

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Scope

Should this article also discuss grazing in an agricultural sense? Richard001 04:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Skin?

Should there be a disambiguation to when you graze your skin i.e roadrash?

Good point - added a disambiguation at the top linking to abrasion. Richard001 08:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Americancentrism

Are grazers only located in the United States? What animals are grazers? Where is the article? Most of this article is about information that is irrelevant... Thanks for the trivia... Stevenmitchell (talk) 13:41, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PENHA conference on pastoralism

There were a couple of edits made citing only "PENHA conference on pastoralism". While something from that conference may be a RS, such a vague reference is not enough. Conferences typically have dozens of authors, speakers and poster presentations that, with a large spread of credibility. The fact that something was said or printed at a conference is not a reliable source. To be included we need a precise reference, specifically we will need the author of the statement, the presentation/publication where the statement was made and the source from which the editor derived that information (eg conference proceedings, radio transcript etc). The fact that an editor heard an audience member ask a question with a statement in it at the conference doesn't make it RS, yet by only citing the conference name, this may be all that it refers to. Wikipedia sources need to be able to be checked, and a conference name isn't enough to enable that to happen.Mark Marathon (talk) 03:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Restructure

There are two distinct uses of the term "Grazing", i.e. the animal behaviour, and the method of agriculture. Perhaps these should be split into separate articles, but for the moment I am going to restructure the article to make this difference clearer.__DrChrissy (talk) 13:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a need to split the article, as they are two sides of the same coin. But do you think that this article really needs a "globalization" tag? It seems silly. Montanabw ^(talk) 23:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya. I actually do think it needs splitting at some point. The two uses are fundamentally different and I think will eventually evolve into their own creations. As for the globalization tag, I did not put that on here and my edits toward the ethological approach of this term will hopefully avoid that sort of problem. But then there is the agricultural approach to the term....__DrChrissy (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MY thinking is to create or expand each of the relevant sections until there is enough information to create the spinoff; I like comprehensive articles over a bunch of Balkanized stubs. By the way, do you object to removal of the "globalize" tag? Seems only one person does, but he won't discuss here. Montanabw ^(talk) 22:00, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am not the one who has refused to discuss this. You reverted my edits multiple times without initiating a discussion, in blatant violation of WP:BRD. You then place an offhand reference on the talk page, in the middle of the night, in the middle of discussion of a separate topic, with another editor. And when I don't respond within 24 hours, you start this crap about not wanting to discuss. You are not even attempting to resolve this in good faith. I have bad news for you: the tag has been on the article for several months. Since you are the only user who wants to remove it, WP:STATUSQUO wins. It's not up to me to justify to you why it should remain. It's up to you to convince me and everyone else that it should be removed. Just as importantly, the whole world does not consist of North America and Antarctica as you seem to think. When this article has an "In Agriculture" section covering the other 6 continents, you might have a defensible case for your edit warring. When multiple sections, such as "Patch Burning" are not very clearly North America specific ( FYI, there other grazers aside from cattle and bison, just as there are other continents aside from North America and Antarctica), you might have a defensible case for your edit waring. When multiple sections, such as "Benefits" do not cite just US examples, you might have a defensible case for your edit warring. Until then, ceas edit warring, and try discussing this in good faith.Mark Marathon (talk) 22:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bullshit. I removed the tag, which has been there for quite some tim. You restored it with a snotty edit summary. I removed it again (2x does not equal "multiple") and took the issue to talk, you can see by the time stamps. Your "middle of the night" is about 11:00 pm my time, WP is worldwide. Frankly, if you don't have any interest in adding any of the material you think is so desperately needed in this article, then you really have no standing with me. If you want to whine about a problem, you have a duty to do some of the work. I'm not wasting any more bandwidth on people like you. Do some work or go pound sand. Montanabw ^(talk) 20:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How you feel is of little concern to me. So long as the tag remains, I'm good.Mark Marathon (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's rather obvious. Frankly, I'm giving you a week to begin the process of "globalizing" the article and then I'm removing the tag. If you aren't willing to do any work on the piece or can't be bothered to find adequate source material to help others to accomplish your goal, then it's a non-issue. My patience with tag-bombing is zero. Montanabw ^(talk) 02:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't work that way my friend. You have already been edit warring in this article. Revert my edits without addressing these issues, in one week or one day, and see what happens. Mark Marathon (talk) 04:13, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2x removal of a tag and then initiating the talk page discussion here is not "edit-warring." In your case, reinserting a tag barely even counts as an "edit." I will remove the tag in a week or so unless someone shows they care and I will watch with fascination what happens, because I really dislike threatening bullies. Montanabw ^(talk) 09:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Grazing vs. Parasitism

Thought I'd open a discussion on this, since the Wiki page for "Generalist and specialist species" provides an immediate counterexample (i.e., koalas) to the argument given for the distinction between 'grazing' and 'parasitism'. In particular, the issue I'm having is with distinguishing grazers as generalist species and parasites as specialist species when I'm sure there are a plurality of counterexamples to this notion, and so perhaps we should consider re-characterizing grazing as a subtype of parasitism. For example, with respect to koalas, it seems to be fairly well-established that they are a specialist species that is largely dependent upon eucalyptus trees for food and habitation--a notion that's further promulgated by the belief that the evolution of certain trees led to the development of chemical defenses that did not play nice with the koala's digestive system, thus leading them to prefer eucalyptus trees^[1]. Couple this with the observation that koalas live most or all of their lives with the same set of eucalyptus trees, and it would seem like koalas counterintuitively are not grazers, but rather are parasites (based off the description provided in this page). Alternatively, one can follow this argument up with one that would purport mosquitoes to be grazers. Furthermore, given the relationship that aphids have with various plant species and given the fact that they're considered parasites to those plants, I see no appreciable difference between the type of interaction that aphids have with certain plants and that koalas have with eucalyptus trees. Would be open to counterarguments, but please keep it civil and intellectually honest. SomeEnlightenedNarcissist (talk) 23:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We need a reliable source for an assertion of this type. If your primary concern is with the definition of parasitism in the lead, I don't see that it is a definition critical to understanding grazing. Montanabw ^(talk) 08:33, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, my apologizes; first time Wikipedian here. Because there isn't any literature, to my knowledge, to justify stating that grazing is a subtype of parasitism, I'm going to limit my suggestion to simply changing the sentence by removing the part that says, "...nor is the grazer necessarily so limited in what it can eat (see generalist and specialist species)," and perhaps specifying that grazers do not necessarily live with the organism they're consuming. A somewhat recent review elucidates that both grazing and parasitism are subtypes of "agonistic" interactions (see Figure 11)--a notion borrowed from an ecology textbook--but that the distinction to be made between the two is centered around the concept of intimacy^[2] ^[3]. Namely, grazing isn't necessarily characterized by an intimate association between the two organisms (as has been mentioned in the current Wiki page), while parasitism is. However, this idea that there is a further distinction to be made regarding whether one is made up of generalist species while the other is more consists of specialist species is patently false, and is directly contradicted by the "generalist and specialist species" page that a link was provided to. Your thoughts? SomeEnlightenedNarcissist (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Make the edit and let's see what it looks like. My gut instinct is to just toss the bit on parasitism from the lead altogether. It seems to be kind of silly to even go into this, other than as an obscure discussion, perhaps buried deep in the article somewhere. Montanabw ^(talk) 03:31, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done, although I should note that I replaced the part about them not living together with the criterion that they live together in a constant state of externality (this is consistent with the literature I cited), the reason being that grazers do not invade the tissue or reside within the organism they're consuming and that the interaction is in fact symbiotic. I think it's important to have something discussing the degree of contrast between the two, although I agree that it may be prudent at some point to remove it from the lead and have a discussion about it elsewhere in the article. It's a tricky distinction to make that probably comes off as quite trivial, but it's actually very important for people studying these symbiotic relationships to know the essential features of each that differentiate one from the other. I plan on eventually going through the article to add citations where they're needed, and perhaps add a brief section discussing the distinction, perhaps in conjunction with what's included in the section on non-grass grazing. SomeEnlightenedNarcissist (talk) 20:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Moore, Ben; Foley, William; Wallis, Ian; Cowling, Ann; Handasyde, Kathrine (March 2005). "Eucalyptus foliar chemistry explains selective feeding by koalas". Biology Letters. 1 (1): 64-67. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2004.0255. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
^ Martin, Bradford; Schwab, Ernest (2013). "Current Usage of Symbiosis and Associated Terminology". International Journal of Biology. 5 (1). {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
^ Stiling, Peter (1975). Ecology: Theories and applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Rare breeds

The phrasing of the new material sound like only rare breeds of cattle can improve the habitat... may want to clarify that. Montanabw ^(talk) 23:35, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for using the rare breeds is, I believe, because they provide lower intensity grazing compared to modern breeds. I'm not exactly sure what lower intensity means (perhaps lower intake, less damage from hooves, more selective diet), but is is possible that only the rare breeds can provide this. These hay-meadows and wetlands are very fragile ecosystems which might simply not tolerate the grass-conversion machines that are our modern cattle. DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. Can you source that? My thinking is that smaller breeds would fit that description, which may or may not correlate to being rare. I would agree that a little Scottish Highlander would be a more efficient grazer than a generic Hereford. But I don't have the sources to back that right at my fingertips. Montanabw ^(talk) 01:07, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "low intensity" is in the source. I have now realised your concern about the phrasing. I've changed this. What do you think? DrChrissy ^(talk) 12:53, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I like it, you are making some good improvements to the article! Montanabw ^(talk) 22:48, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Environmental impact

The environmental impact section of this article is missing citations but the info put forth is critical and, as far as I can tell seems biased. It clearly tries to paint livestock grazing in a positive light, suggesting that the impacts are wholly good for our planet; but the reality is just the opposite. The negative aspects of livestock grazing should be highlighted more -- there are plenty of citations available for the negative environmental impacts -- and the claims made without citation should be stricken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:EF54:5000:99B3:8D03:5B02:9F99 (talk) 22:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The uncited claims about the supposed environmental benefits of grazing are still present in the Environmental impact section of the article, more than a year after they were initially flagged. In some instances, these claims directly contradict well-cited facts included elsewhere in the article. Fair warning; the uncited claims should be removed. Jeandjinni (talk) 11:58, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Production

Looking at FAO figures for 2012 (cited here), the claim that 85% of land is unsuitable for crop production seems to be a misstatement. The FAO data do not indicate this; possibly the data are being misinterpreted. The FAO data cited indicate actual (not possible) use of land for crops, which looks to be about 17%. This does not indicate that 85% of all US land is unsuitable for crop production. The claim is misleading, and should be removed. I've qualified the claim for now. Unless it is substantiated, the text should be removed soon. Jeandjinni (talk) 03:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Scope revisited

Chiswick Chap recently wrote "...I think we have 2 articles in here, natural and agricultural grazing." I agree, and think a split would help structure the article(s) better. For natural/ wild animal grazing, I would go with 'grazing (behavior)' a format already used in the articles Flocking (behavior) and Sniffing (behavior).Dialectric (talk) 15:03, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support, that is a useful pattern to follow. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:09, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support, makes sense to me! Leo Breman (talk) 10:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's get on with it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Moore, Ben; Foley, William; Wallis, Ian; Cowling, Ann; Handasyde, Kathrine (March 2005). "Eucalyptus foliar chemistry explains selective feeding by koalas". Biology Letters. 1 (1): 64-67. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2004.0255. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

[2] Martin, Bradford; Schwab, Ernest (2013). "Current Usage of Symbiosis and Associated Terminology". International Journal of Biology. 5 (1). {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

[3] Stiling, Peter (1975). Ecology: Theories and applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

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