Cattle Nutrition: Looking Back, Looking Forward

May 09, 2023

By Dr. Katie Mason

The beginning of spring is one of my favorite times of the year. As I drive through the state, I enjoy seeing pastures turning green and lush, flowers blooming, and new calves running about. I especially enjoy walking through some of those pastures, whether it’s with a producer who has questions about grazing management, a group of Extension agents who are learning from one another at an in-service training, or a group of students gaining hands-on experience in pasture assessment. In April, there was a week where I conducted pasture walks on three back-to-back days. My message was consistent: take a walk!

The only way to know what’s truly in the pasture is to get out and walk around. When you drive past and see a sea of green, it can be deceiving. You are not accurately perceiving the type or amount of forage available, nor the amount of ground cover by viewing across the pasture. So, I encourage you to get out in your pastures and take a walk, and evaluate the following items, adapted from NRCS Pasture Assessment:

Species present
- While it’s great to know the difference in fescue, orchardgrass, white clover, and various broadleaf plants, it is simpler than that. How much of your pasture is made up of desirable species? Desirable species are those that are readily grazed, high-quality, and plentiful and can be a variety of grasses and legumes. A great pasture is made up of over 80% desirable species.
Percent of legume
- Legumes can provide a nitrogen benefit when present at 30% of the pasture and do not cause loss of grass.
Ground cover
- It is crucial to keep soil covered to maintain moisture and appropriate temperature, reduce runoff, and reduce weed pressure. A dense stand ensures high animal intake and plenty of sunlight interception so plants can regrow after grazing events. Even dead plant material can break down to cover the ground and become organic matter in the soil.
Plant diversity
- Diversity is great for grazing systems! Having a mixture of warm- and cool-season grasses and legumes allows for longer grazing seasons and a variety of quality and quantity available throughout the year.
Grazing utilization
- Is the pasture being evenly grazed, or are cattle spending more time near water or feeding areas than the back corner? Are forage plants being grazed too short, resulting in slow or poor regrowth? Rotating cattle through pastures and then allowing the pasture to rest encourages plant persistence and results in greater utilization.

There are several other indicators of pasture condition, but the points above are a great place to start. Evaluate these items during times of peak growth and slow growth, at the beginning of the season and after challenging weather conditions, and especially after you’ve made a change in your grazing management. Pastures change throughout the year, and it is important to be flexible and adapt your plans based on what you observe. So, get out and take that walk because your pastures can tell you a lot. And getting those extra steps in never hurts!

Source : tennessee.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”