Summer’s Here, Now’s The Time to Step Up Those Pasture Management Practices!

Jul 18, 2022

By Haley Shoemaker

It can be tempting to set pasture management on cruise control once summer rolls around – plants are still lush and green from the springtime, and tasks such as making hay tend to bump grazing rotations down the priority ladder. However, if a producer has grazed for any amount of time, they know all too well the impact hot and dry weather can have on a forage stand if managed improperly. As the traditional July heat builds and we head into a period of slower growth and increased recovery time for our pastures, there are some tried and true management practices that can maintain pasture productivity and success for grazing seasons to come.

Resist the urge to overgraze

There’s a long-held principle within the grazing community known as “take half, leave half”. In essence, this means that grazing should ideally begin once a pasture reaches an average of 8-10 inches of plant height. Once that forage is grazed to approximately 4 inches (think pop can height), cattle should be moved to the next pasture. One of the primary benefits here is the preservation of root mass – when at least half of the leaf area of the plant is left, photosynthesis can still occur, and plants have the chance to continue growth.

Allowing cattle to overgraze and remove excessive amounts of leaf area not only leads to decreased root mass and energy reserves within the plant, but also leads to increased soil temperatures, which can prove especially challenging for our cool season grasses. Essentially, when a grazing system works as it should, the leaf acts as the barrier between the sun and soil, taking up sunlight as needed, and providing shade and helping to prevent evaporation of soil moisture.

Keep it moving . . . but not too fast

We’ve probably all felt the urge to speed up our rotation when the days are long, hot, and dry. Yet, while moving cattle through pastures at a slower pace during these periods may seem counterintuitive, it is actually recommended in order to give plants adequate time to rest and recover. The key to avoid grazing yourself out of pasture space is to first determine the number of lots or paddocks needed. There are a multitude of calculations and formulas dedicated to just this topic, however in this case number of pasture breaks can be calculated by dividing the days of rest needed for recovery by the number of days cattle will spend grazing + 1. Studies have shown that pastures tend to need upwards of 35 days to fully recover to proper grazing height during the summer months, and that beef rotations may last anywhere from 3 to 5 days in length. However, the days needed to graze to 4 inches can vary slightly between herds depending on development stage of cattle grazing and size of the paddock.

All this considered, it is still important to remember that even the best laid plans are subject to weather patterns and the ability of our pastures to recover during those dry spells, even with appropriate recovery time. If it becomes evident that turning cattle out according to the grazing schedule will cause unnecessary stress to the pasture or lead to overgrazing, stored forage or a sacrifice lot may need to be fed or utilized in order to meet nutritional needs.

Use summer to plan ahead for fall and winter grazing

The benefits of grazing don’t have to end in August – in fact, that’s when our pastures can work on getting their “second wind.” Stockpiling, the practice of allowing forage to build up for use during the winter months, requires a little pre-planning on the producer’s part, however can pay off in the long run through less reliance on stored forage throughout those cold months, and more bang for your buck in terms of pasture usage. The key to successfully setting up your pastures for stockpiling is to remove cattle before the cold sets in, and before pastures go dormant – typically in the early to middle parts of August. When the cattle are pulled off, this can serve as the “last pass” for the season, or if needed, pastures can be clipped down to 3-5” to spur the regrowth needed for stockpiling. It is worth noting that forage variety does matter when considering the timing of grazing stockpiled forages. Common pasture grasses such as orchardgrass or tall fescue can hold up into the early winter and beyond, whereas legume species such as alfalfa or red clover are not as tolerant of sustained cooler temperatures and should be grazed during fall.

Summer is a busy time on all fronts but investing in your pastures during these months can save time and precious dollars down the road in the form of reduced feed costs. After all, everything needs to pull its weight in some way on the farm, so why not do yourself a favor, and set up your pastures to work for you?

Source : osu.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”