Indici foraggeri di specie legnose ed erbacee alpine per il bestiame caprino

Foraging indexes of wooden and herbaceous alpine species for goat livestock. Foraging indexes are easier and cheaper than chemical analysis to value phytocoenosis’ foraging rate. Once the productive contribution or the covering ratio of all the species are known, the foraging valueof the phytocoenosis is the weighted average of the foraging value of the single species. Altough various indexes are available for cattle, there’s no one for the other domestic livestocks. No doubt this is a gap, considering the differences in diet and grazing behaviour of the different grazing species. This work aims to partially fill this gap. A first list of values for goat livestock is proposed. The list reflects numerous surveys carried out in different locations of Lombardian Alps. A hundred of wooden and herbaceous species growing in the mountain and sub-alpine belt were observed.