Les ''herbes'' des troupeaux ovins transhumants de Crau. Multiples dimensions d'une gestion pastorale et fourragère

''Herbage'' used by the transhumant sheep flocks from Crau. The multiple dimensions of pasture and forage management

Just as the large transhumant cattle herds from Crau, the transhumant sheep flocks graze the available areas under grass at staggered intervals and in sometimes distant locations. Pregnant ewes spend summer on the uplands and in autumn migrate down to lowland pastures for lambing and suckling their young. After drying off and until they leave for the alpine pastures, the ewes make use of range lands, scrub lands, and fallow lands, where tupping takes place.
Diversified grazing and forage practices are employed for the utilization and distribution of these resources. In summer, the time differences between swards, linked to altitude and to exposure, are put to use on the upland pastures, and the typical structuring of the grazed alpine landscape is thus reinforced. In autumn, on the regrowth of pastures, grazing is intensive, with very large stocking densities (1 000 to 1 500 ewes per hectare). The flocks graze the range lands from March to June, even though grass growth is really active in April-May only. The grazing practices are based on the buffer role played by the perennials;
when the swards are utilized short of their potential, foggage remains preserved. Some specific adaptations are also used by the farmers, such as an adjusted duration of tupping, more intensive spring forages (lucerne, Mediterranean fescues), etc.
The 110 000 ewes that are present in autumn on the Crau pastures
are maintaining over 40 000 ha of various range lands and
130 000 ha of alpine pastures. The methods of management of all these lands are changeing, in order to get a better response to environmental requests : reclamation of sites, opening of the vegetation with multiple use, preservation of the bio-diversity of the fauna, etc.