Acacia species are important components of bush encroachment and browse production in Africa. Goats are bothabundant and regarded as useful biological agents of woody plant control, but compensatory regrowth responses canreduce the impacts of herbivory. Compensatory/overcompensatory  regrowth of woodyplants following herbivory ispostulated to be most likely to occur when resources are not  limiting, but the  responses of Acacia seedlings toresource–browsing interactions have not been studied. A  split-plot experiment was conducted to investigate effects of irrigation, N fertiliser and grass cover on growth  and biomass allocation of Acacia karroo seedlings after early wet seasonclipping in a semi-arid savanna. Responses were estimated at the end of the wet season. Compensatory/overcompensatoryregrowth occurred when water was added without grass cover. Clipping increased the mean leaf:shoot mass ratio and hadeither neutral or positive effects on spine:leaf and spine:shoot ratios that appeared to be unrelated to resources. Wepostulate that in conditions of heavy grazing that reduce grass biomass, it is more difficult to control Acacia seedlings withgoats in wet than in dry years. This is important to consider for bush control because Acacia seedling recruitment isbelieved to be high in wet years, when control by goats may be most difficult. Keywords: Bush encroachment, compensatory growth, plant defence, plant-herbivore, savanna, tree-grass.