‘Take Half, Leave Half’: How to Avoid Overgrazing Pastureland

Dec 10, 2020

Fast Facts:

Overgrazed pastures a common sight in much of Arkansas
Realistic expectations, pasture management plan key to success

Anyone who’s driven the highways of the western half of Arkansas has seen it: overgrazed pastures, nearly denuded and almost bare of plant ground cover, save for some tall, brush-like weeds in one corner of the pasture or another.

“Unfortunately, overgrazed pastures are a quite frequent sight in the fall,” Dirk Philipp, associate professor of animal science for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said.

“There’s usually a host of non-desirable species such as broomsedge, foxtail and even pigweed showing up in overgrazed pastures,” he said.

But the aesthetic effects of overgrazing are secondary to the actual ecological impacts that may be taking place, Philipp said.

“It’s not visible by the human eye, but soil compaction may be an issue if stocking rates have been kept high for years,” he said.

While prolonged overstocking does present a problem, Philipp said, unrealistic expectations on the part of the landowner may be at the root of the issue.

“Producers naturally seek to maximize their return — and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “However, stocking rates are often too high for sustainably producing forages and maintaining pasture health and productivity long term. Since returns are low in cow/calf operations, there’s little room for expensive inputs, either.”

To maintain high stocking rates, landowners should increase their inputs accordingly, Philipp said. Fertilizers, liming, reseeding and weed control are all recurring needs for healthy grazing pastures.

Many landowners in Arkansas keep as many as two to three cow/calf pairs per acre, Philipp said. While some areas may support this, the rate may actually be too high for many pastures in the state.

As a result of high stocking rates, Philipp said, forage can be in short supply during the colder parts of the year.

“Producers end up relying too much on hay feeding,” he said. “Hay may be relatively affordable when bought from a supplier, but feeding for prolonged periods of time has its own financial challenges.”

Hay feeding areas are prone to soil compaction and soil nutrient imbalances, Philipp said. Large amounts of seeds, either from other forages or weeds, are carried in, which can wreak havoc with your original pasture plan. Constant additional grazing in pastures can reduce leaf area and root growth to such an extent that a recovery may not be possible during the following spring.

To avoid overgrazing, Philipp offers some general guidelines for pasture managers.

“Be realistic with overall stocking rates,” he said. “Make sure that whenever you graze pastures, you can afford to ‘take half, leave half’ of the standing forage.”

If a producer is forced to graze lower than six inches to make “the paddock last a bit longer,” the overall stocking rate may be too high.

“Ideally, you need to leave room every year for stockpiling your fescue, overseeding dormant warm season forages with winter annuals and possibly plant summer annuals,” Philipp said. “All this requires that you have a forage and pasture management plan, and that you actually have enough ‘buffer’ in your operation so that you can move your animals to other pastures and make room for the necessary pasture upkeep and maintenance.”

To learn more about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.edu. Follow us on Twitter at @UAEX_edu.

Source : uaex.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.”