Part 7: When and How Often to Monitor

For how long should I monitor?

Having a monitoring program in place on a permanent basis is the ideal situation. Remember, monitoring means documenting change over time so hopefully your commitment will be long term. Although you will have data that will be useful right away, the greatest benefit of monitoring comes from data collected for five years and more. Your level of monitoring (minimal, recommended, or comprehensive) may change, but it is desirable to have some data collection and analysis of management practices on an ongoing basis.

Let’s look at some possible scenarios that may work on your ranch:

• Begin a program at the recommended level of monitoring (twice yearly) and maintain this level on a permanent basis.
  
  
• Start slowly and increase over time
• Start with a minimal monitoring program (every three years) to begin collecting data and analyzing management practices on your ranch. As time goes on, you may see that more frequent monitoring is feasible and you want more information on which to base your management decisions.
  
  
• Start strongly and taper over time
  • You may decide that you want to begin with an intense monitoring program (recommended or comprehensive level) that allows you to evaluate many areas of your ranch at several different times of the year. Then, as time goes on and you have some good information, you may decide to scale back your program to minimal monitoring.