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Farmers develop knowledge on technical processes that is useful for action. As such their knowledge often differs from that of agricultural scientists. A study on pasture management for dairy cows in the Jura Mountains enabled the author to highlight the farmers’ views by analyzing their discourse and observing their practices. Their conceptions and practices were then compared with the agricultural scientists’ conception of rotational grazing. Farmers and agricultural scientists conceive differently the relations between space and time. The farmers interviewed follow the growth of grass at different sites at each moment in time whereas agricultural scientists view a pasture as an area of land that is fixed throughout the grazing season, with grass growing on that field with the passage of time. The issue of the grazing area in grazing management differs in the two groups. For the Jura farmers, the main issue is the size of the grazing area in July, which is considered to be a result of what has occurred in the spring. In rotational grazing management, the chief consideration is the grazing area available in the spring, which is determined before the cows are turned out to grass. Management indicators are also shown to differ in the two situations. Potential use by agricultural scientists of their knowledge of farmer conceptions, and the transferability of the results are presented are discussed.