Rainfall is recognized as a major factor affecting the rate of plant growth development. The impact of
changes in amount and variability of rainfall on growth and production of different forage grasses needs
to be quantified to determine how climate change can impact rangelands. Comparative studies to
evaluate the growth of several perennial forage species at different rainfall rates will provide useful
information by identifying forage management strategies under various rainfall scenarios. In this study,
the combination of rainfall changes and soil types on the plant growth of 10 perennial forage species was
investigated with both the experimental methods, using rainout shelters, and with the numerical
methods using the plant growth simulation model, ALMANAC. Overall, most species significantly
increased basal diameter and height as rainfall increased. Like measured volume, simulated yields for all
species generally increased as rainfall increased. But, large volume and yield increases were only
observed between 350 and 850 mm/yr. Simulating all species growing together competing agrees
relatively well with observed plant volumes at low rainfall treatment, while simulating all species
growing separately was slightly biased towards overestimation on low rainfall effect. Both simulations
agree relatively well with observed plant volume at high rainfall treatment.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license