11 minute read
DROUGHT MANAGEMENT
from 2021 Fall Directions
by NCBA
Making it Through the Winter Without Destroying Future Grazing Resources
By Hugh Aljoe, Noble Research Institute Director of Producer Relations
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Looking at the Drought Monitor dated Sept. 9, 2021, we see over 55 percent of the U.S. is currently experiencing abnormally dry to exceptional drought conditions (see adjacent graphic). Most of the drought conditions are in the West and Northwest. While the weather drives one part of the story, management decisions drive the other. In drought situations it is not just about the next significant rainfall event, it is also about managing through the next two or more growing seasons.
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U.S. Drought Monitor
(Released Thurs. Sept 9, 2021) Valid 8 a.m.
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Many cattlemen and other agricultural producers in the Western and Northwestern U.S. have faced drought conditions for most of this year. In fact, most of these producers have experienced at least two dry growing seasons. Drought affects the land, the grasses and grass productivity, which impact livestock production and a rancher’s bottom line.
Contingency plans for drought should be a part of a ranch’s overall operational management plan, so when drought conditions occur, one has a protocol of decisions to be assessed and decided upon. This approach minimizes the adverse impacts and stress associated with the decisions to be made. Hopefully, the cattlemen affected this year had a good drought contingency plan and have made good use of it. Regardless, there needs to be a plan in place to get through the winter and into spring. In this article, we will focus on pasture management during drought conditions for the winter and early spring.
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Drought Impact Types:
Delineates dominant impacts
S = Short-Term, typically less than 6 months (e.g. agriculture, grasslands)
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L = Long-Term, typically greater than 6 months (e.g. hydrology, ecology) Intensity:
None D0 Abnormally Dry D1 Moderate Drought D2 Severe Drought D3 Extreme Drought D4 Exceptional Drought
Authors United States and Puerto Rico Author(s): David Simeral, Western Regional Climate Center
KEVIN YON YON FAMILY FARMS, SOUTH CAROLINA
Start with a Pasture Assessment The first place to begin is with an assessment of the pasture grazing condition. Take inventory of your pastures and score the condition of each. A simple categorization of ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ is all that is required. It is important to visualize pasture grazing condition. For example, a poor-condition pasture has been grazed severely, perennial grass plants are weak or dead, and little residual forage remaining. Fair-condition pasture is described as having a healthy plant community with some residual but no additional forage for grazing going into winter. Good-condition pasture has a healthy plant community and a good amount of grazeable forage remaining at the end of the growing season. Excellent condition has a stockpile of reserve forage, perhaps due to more favorable moisture conditions during the growing season.
Once condition is established, determine how much grazing is available in the good and excellent condition pastures, assuming there is adequate livestock drinking water in those pastures. Most cattlemen have a good idea of how many weeks or months of grazing is ahead of them relative to the cattle numbers being carried. Ideally, there is more than enough to get the existing herd through the winter, or a slight adjustment can be made to match cattle numbers to fit the amount of forage available for winter grazing with hay feeding limited to the inclement weather periods.
If livestock numbers exceed the grass and hay reserves, cattlemen face more difficult decisions. Choices will likely be between destocking by selling some or all cattle, relocating them to areas with forage, or purchasing hay and feeding through the winter or longer. Destocking and relocating cattle are often better options to prevent damaging the grazing resource than To prevent damaging the pastures by over-utilization, destocking is the best option. One should never carry more livestock than the pasture resource can comfortably support. While drought conditions often make us consider the capacity to carry the animals we have, carrying capacity should be a principle that we constantly evaluate. That principle should be adhered to in the short- and long-term and evaluated throughout the year. Stocking rate should be routinely adjusted based on pasture or range conditions, which are largely affected by moisture conditions.
B:7.6325" T:7.6325" S:7.6325" Focus on Each Pasture’s Condition Once we have a good mental picture of our range and pasture condition based upon our assessment, we can then determine how we need to manage our pastures through winter and into spring. Pastures in poor and fair condition do not have forage to graze during winter. They also have perennial grasses that are subject to winterkill from two main factors — depletion of energy reserves within the root system, and exposure to the elements due to a lack of residual plant material that helps insulate growing points. Producers should avoid grazing these pastures altogether during the winter and should delay grazing in the spring until after spring full — flush has occurred. Depending on the severity of use over the last growing season, poor condition pastures may need a full growing season of rest to restore the health and vigor of surviving plants and to allow recruitment of new plants. Often annual grasses and weeds/forbs emerge early in the spring following a season of over-utilization or drought. A surplus of these annuals can inhibit growth of the desirable
DR. NANCY JACKSON, DVM SOUTHERN CROSS FARM, MISSISSIPPI
perennial grasses as well. There may be a window of opportunity in the spring to graze the annuals, but defer grazing for all or most of the growing season once the desired perennials start growing well. Be prepared to address invasive or nuisance weeds if they appear on key pastures early in the spring.
Pastures in good condition should not be over-utilized during the winter. Adequate residual should always be maintained to ensure health and vigor of existing grass plants next spring. Come spring, these pastures should be able to tolerate grazing early, but manage stock numbers such that grass grows faster than cattle can graze it. This is called ‘graze the grass up,’ which is a normal occurrence if the pasture is stocked appropriately. Drought-stressed pastures will respond differently in the spring, in that the desired grass plants may ‘green up’ later than usual. As a result, expect to fully stock drought-stressed pastures a little later in the spring after vigor and regrowth capacity is assessed. With spring moisture, pastures well-managed during drought conditions will usually respond very rapidly, but that can be delayed if they are over-utilized during the winter.
Excellent-condition pastures heading into winter are best suited for winter grazing, even in a drought. They respond early in the spring and usually accumulate forage more rapidly than pastures in lesser conditions. Having managed these pastures so there is standing reserve forage for winter grazing, and by maintaining good residual after grazing, these pastures will be the ones ready to graze early next spring, and they should be the first ones grazed. Substitute-Feeding Guidelines It is rarely recommended to feed through a drought because it is expensive and usually cost-prohibitive. If you are experiencing drought, so are your neighbors. Unless already in storage, hay must be trucked in from a region where hay is more plentiful, often several states away, which adds to the cost.
Although substitute feeding is not the preferred option in pasture management during drought, here are guidelines and recommendations for producers who choose to substitute feed. When feeding hay as a substitute for a prolonged period, attempt to purchase hay that meets or slightly exceeds livestock requirements for the physiological stage of the cattle being fed during the anticipated time frame. Below is a table listing the dry matter intake (DMI), energy (as total digestible nutrients – TDN) and crude protein (CP) for a 1,200-pound beef cow as an example.
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TOMMY BRANDENBERGER 96 CATTLE COMPANY, TEXAS
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When feeding hay, consider the feeding location carefully. Some producers may opt to feed in a dry lot in order to impact a small area. The largest issue related to a dry lot is mud during periods of moisture, which may not become an issue until spring or when the drought breaks. Have a plan in place to move the cattle out of the lot prior to calving, or use a fresh calving lot for freshening cows. In any case, one will want to place new cow-calf pairs on fresh areas, preferably on pasture, to minimize potential health issues such as scours and pneumonia in the calves.
Another option is feeding hay on a sacrifice pasture. Knowing that the location will be heavily contaminated with manure and hay residue, select an area that would benefit from the concentrated waste materials or that would recover rapidly during the next growing season with a little additional management. An ideal sacrifice area would be one with low plant density, lots of bare soil and is not prone to erosion. Such a pasture could use the extra waste materials to cover the soil and supply extra nutrients for forage production in the future. A shallow, rocky site or a weak, sandy site are examples of good sacrifice areas within a pasture setting. Other sites that often make good hay feeding areas are pastures with perennial introduced forage, or no-till croplands that with a little light renovation and weed control would recover rapidly. Spring Pasture Considerations for Grazing We hope next spring we will see the drought abated and favorable moisture conditions return. If so, we still need to be cautious about restocking pastures too early. Assess if your pastures respond next spring with the vigor and health of pre-drought conditions. If so, determine the management needed to shape up each pasture, prioritizing the most productive pastures. If investments of time, money and/or labor are needed to improve or restore pastures, the best investment is usually with the most productive pastures. However, the two most important management activities next spring are: 1) stock cattle in proportion to forage production as it occurs, and 2) provide adequate rest and recovery to the droughtstressed pastures.
As one comes out of a drought, do not expect to return immediately to the pre-drought stocking rate. Allow for the perennial grasses to regrow and recover before attempting to fully restock, especially if some or most of your pastures were in poor or fair grazing condition going into winter. If destocked, allow most of the pastures to grow to full-flush before adding stock Provide for adequate rest and recovery of the drought-stricken pastures next growing season to improve rate of recovery. In more arid areas, which describes most of the drought-affected region today, growing season deferment for the most impacted pastures is a viable consideration. Give these pastures a “Sabbath rest”, where the land is to be given a full year rest before being grazed. For pastures in good-to-excellent grazing condition going into winter, adequate rest and recovery next growing season means to graze the pastures taking only the top half of the forage plants and then allowing the pastures to fully regrow again before re-grazing. In arid areas, this may mean using a rest-rotation system where a grazing event will be followed by extended periods of rest and recovery, with some pastures only being grazed once a growing season or year.
In less arid regions and in operations using adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing or other forms of managed rotational grazing where multiple grazing events occur each growing season, focus on allowing pasture grasses to fully recover from previous grazing before being re-grazed. Again, when grazing, care should be taken to top-graze early in the growing season and maintain adequate pasture residual through the remainder of the growing season and in the dormant season. Concluding Remarks Drought is a regular obstacle in most of our grazing land environments. As cattlemen and grazing land stewards, we need to be prepared with contingency plans for droughts. As we experience drought conditions, we need to focus even more on our pasture management. The cows may be the factory of many of our operations and the calves our product; however, the pastures supply the foundation and utilities to the factory. How well we plan and intentionally manage our pastures before, during and immediately after a drought often determine the rate of recovery and the future carrying capacity of the ranch. As in all management activities that matter, to manage them well we need to continually monitor, assess and adapt. Pasture management is no different. In times of stress such as drought, more active management is required to preserve the operation and the land resource. Planning now for winter management of pastures will increase the odds of a better spring season.
DROUGHT MANAGEMENT
