Silvopastoral systems as a strategy to attenuate the negative effects of heat stress on productivity of beef cows grazing natural grassland

Heat stress affects cow-calf performance during the summer; thus, it is relevant to study attenuation strategies. The thermal environment, physiological response to heat stress, concentrations of metabolic hormones and productivity of cow-calf pairs grazing silvopastoral (SPS) and full sun (FS) systems, associated or not with temporary weaning (TW) were evaluated. Eighty-four Braford crosses cow-calf pairs were randomly assigned to four treatments in two years: (1) SPS + TW (n = 15), (2) SPS − TW (n = 28), (3) FS + TW (n = 18) and (4) FS − TW (n = 23). The black globe temperature humidity index was lower under the trees shade, thus SPS cows explored a larger area ( P