干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Taking into account the relationship between rainfall and temperature, 64% of the Spanish territory can be classified as arid (25%) or semiarid (39%). In these areas, vegetal surface includes permanent pastures and drought grasslands (34.0%), fallows (13.4%), winter cereals for grain production (21.2%), forage crops (mainly lucerne, and winter cereals harvested as green forage; 2.6%) and woodland hills. Ruminants in these zones account for 15.4 million head, of which nearly 80% are sheep. In the present paper, the possibilities of integrating sheep in cropping systems are discussed, and an alternative based on the use of permanent sowed prairies (lucerne), self-sowing annuals (Wimmera ryegrass) and winter cereals (barley) will be analysed.