Forage biomass of different pasture management systems in Western Region of São Paulo State, Brazil

The objective of this dataset was to present the forage biomass production over time in different pasture management systems. We selected two farms located in the Western region of São Paulo State, Brazil. Pasture field data collection was carried out in two farms during three dates (June and November 2018 and March 2019) over two seasons (wet and dry). Samples were regularly taken through time to monitor forage biomass. These fields represent a wide variety of pasture management, as follow:

Farm 1 (Santa Clara): i) traditional, low forage productivity, cattle rotation; ii) traditional, intermediate forage productivity, fertilized, cattle rotation; iii) intensified pasture, high forage productivity, reformed, cattle rotation.
Farm 2 (Poderosa): i) traditional degraded*, recently reformed with millet + grass, cattle rotation; ii) traditional, low forage productivity, signs of degradation, fertilized, cattle rotation. *degraded was based on visual analysis of pasture area with sparse grass and exposed soil in some areas.

With the support of NDVI images from the MODIS sensor, sample pixels were used to allocate the sample points. The areas of these pixels were divided into nine sampling points and in each of these points, the forage biomass was collected. Soil analyses were also carried out in two seasons (June 2018 and March 2019).

The data files were organized in three folders. Each folder represents one field campaign. These folders have a shapefile of all the fields, the same file in kml extension (to open on Google Earth) and a zip file with photography of each field during the field campaign. The attribute table of the shapefile has a description of the fields and biomass. Excel files show the same information of the attribute table and a description of the items. A figure with the template of the biomass collection scheme is also available. Soil analyses are in the folders 'June 2018' and 'March 2019'. A more detailed description and discussion about these data and their association with soil chemical analysis were described in a scientific report (available by request).

The biomass collection allowed the analysis of the forage production and better diagnoses about resource utilization strategies over the different pasture systems.

This work was funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (process numbers 2018/10770-1, 2017/06037-4, 2016/08741-8, 2017/08970-0, 2018/11052-5 and 2014/26767-9) as part of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Initiative.