Drought can be a very devastating thing to deal with. Forages stop producing, making it difficult for ranchers to make it. All in all, drought can make things seem pretty bleak while going through it.
With all this difficulty, it can be easy to fall into “survival” mode during this time. Taking extreme measures and just hoping that things will turn better. But what if I was to tell you that there was a different option?
While you may not be able to stop drought from happening all is not lost. The one thing to remember is that eventually, the rains will come back so you will need to look ahead. There are things that you can do during this time to ensure that your pasture will bounce back once the rain does return, Here are some things that you can do in the meantime:
Plan ahead for drought
The best strategy for dealing with drought is to have a plan in place before it even starts. As the saying goes ” the time to plan for drought is when the rain is falling”. If you wait for when it happens there is a possibility that you will be too emotionally attached to make the correct decisions.
What this plan should contain is what steps to take in the event things become too dry. This can be triggered by something like if you do not get enough rain by a certain day on the calendar. Depending on the how little rain you have received will determine just how severe the cuts that you will be needing to make are.
The key thing to keep in mind with any plan that you make is preserving the pasture. The condition of your forages and pastures is the bedrock of any livestock operation. Pastures should be managed for adequate long-term cover and production. The way to look at it is that you are a grass farmer and your livestock are just another means of harvesting them.
Develop plan correctly
Any forage management plans should be made at least 1 season ahead. An example of this is that any plans for summer should be made during the spring. This will give you enough time to get together any material that you need. Waiting till the last minute can be very bad for you.
A well-developed plan can generally help protect you from the most critical effects of drought. Things such as shortages of water and feed. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln has a lot of information available on how to develop a drought plan. It provides you with 7 steps that you can take to improve your chances during this trying time.
Grazing Management
The thing that you can do to best improve making it out of this is proper grazing management. The amount of forages left after animal grazing is the biggest key factor in how well your pasture will bounce back. This will require a balancing act on getting the most out of your forages while leaving enough to grow back. The main thing to take away from this is to not overgraze your pastures.
Letting your grasses have enough rest in between grazing is a major factor in success or failure. If plants have enough rest then the root system will stay healthy. Keeping the roots healthy will determine how well the plant can take in moisture and nutrients and grow back.
Let them rest
Depending on the species of the forages you can figure they need to grow to 8-10 inches before you let the animals back onto the field. Types like Bermudagrass can handle more grazing because they have above and below-ground runners. Getting to this height can depend on conditions so is best not to be on a set schedule. Once they are on the pasture you will want to take them off once they have grazed the forages down to about half of the original length.
There are different things that you can do to reduce the demand for your forages. One such technique is to remove a certain number of animals or destock. In order to do this and not affect your overall productivity, there are certain steps that you will need to take. I go over these steps in a previous post ” How destocking can ease your pain”.
The time that you return the animals to the pasture can also play a part in the overall health. A good rule of thumb to remember is to not turn them out until the pasture has had about 5-6 weeks of new growth. If severely overgrazed you should rest the pasture till growth stops in the fall.
Soil fertility
The two best measures of pasture recovery are stand thickness and forage height. A good way to achieve either of these is to improve the fertility of the soil. The first step in doing this is to perform a soil test and then follow the instructions on your results. Pastures with lower fertility will likely have greater damage from drought than a pasture with good fertility.
The type and amount of fertilizer that you put out will also play a factor. A good recovery approach is to treat this as a “new seeding”. What this means is that you should focus a little more on putting out enough Phosphorus. What this will do is improve the root production of the plants in the pasture. Depending on what your recommendations say and the overall damage you will probably need to apply 20-75lbs of P per acre.
In order to prevent any of it from being wasted, it is important to know not to apply any Nitrogen until adequate moisture is present. During or right after a drought you should only put out enough for a 30-day production period in the presence of adequate soil moisture. An example of this would be to apply no more than 75lbs of N per acre per month.
Drought weed control
Aggressive weed control is necessary during this time. Weeds tend to recover quicker and they can choke out any potential new growth you could get. So to improve the chances of recovery you will need to get them under control.
The key to this step is that you want to remove any competition with your forages. Once the rains return water will be at a premium you do not want anything taking that away from your recovering forages.
While reducing competition for water and nutrients is important this is not the time to get overzealous. The timing of your herbicide application is more important than the total amount. In order to be most effective, you will want to apply when the weed is growing. Depending on the type that can be in the fall or even in the spring of the next year.
The type of weeds that you have will determine what kind of herbicide you will need. The best method for controlling broadleaf weeds is a timely post-emergent herbicide application of something like 2,4-D. For any winter annual weeds, an application of a glyphosate product can do the trick. The key to remember is to first identify what you have. This is in order to know what you will need to get rid of them.
