Maintaining your pasture during the summer can be very tricky. In no time at all, it can go from adequate moisture to extremely dry. A manager has to be on their game to keep their pasture from suffering too much.
Though I am not sure how it is where you are here in west Texas it can be a very difficult job keeping pastures productive during this time. It seems most years that mother nature does not want to cooperate with you and hold back needed moisture.
While you can not control the weather there are steps that you can take to give your forages a chance. Things like rotational grazing and the right stocking rate can go a long way. Here are some things to consider when you are facing another dry summer.
Practice good pasture grazing
Along with the forages how you let the pasture be grazed can play a major role in determining its effectiveness. Letting the grasses be overgrazed can hurt you not only in the short term but also in the long run. The thing to remember here is to “take half/leave half” and “allow enough rest”
Leave plenty of grass
The leaf area that is left over after a grazing pass provides the needed base for any regrowth. The amount left over also shades the soil to keep the soil temperature cooler and help to reduce soil moisture loss. Studies have also shown that leaving half of the leaf area produces a minimal impact on the plant root system. So you mustn’t cheat on this principle during the hot, dry summer.
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph what you want to do is leave about half of the left area when you move the cows out of the pasture. This will enable the plant to continue to absorb nutrients along with moisture and recover quicker. Taking off more than that will cause a significant decrease in the plant root system and slow down any recovery that would occur.
A good rule of thumb here is to leave about inches of grass height to get the benefits that were mentioned. Maintaining this leaf amount provides the grass the best opportunity to take advantage of any rain that you may get during the summer.
Allow pasture plenty of rest
Once you have moved the cattle off you should allow the pasture plenty of rest to allow the grass to grow back before you let them back on. The amount of rest needed will change depending on things like the amount of growth and the rainfall that you have received.
It is best to graze most of your forages when they are 8-10 inches tall. There are some like bluegrass and perennial ryegrass that can be used at 6-8 inches. But, for the most part, the previous scale should be used. Do not try to rush it but let your pasture tell you when to rotate.
One way to provide adequate rest is to have enough paddocks. Time for a little math work: Let’s say that it takes 35 days for your pasture to regrow to a height of 8-10″ and you keep your cows in each paddock for 5 days. Your results can vary, this is just what I am using as an example. The formula to use is 35/5+ 7 +1 or 8 paddocks to provide enough rest period.
Use the right stocking rate
Using the correct stocking rate is important to maintaining grass health. What this rate means is the number of animals that your acreage can maintain without any detriment to your forages. There are different factors that go into determining this so it can change from one year to the next.
A good idea to follow is to use a conservative stocking rate in order to not stress the forages. When plants are consistently grazed too close before a drought, they will be less likely to survive it because of their weakening condition. On the other side doing that after drought will not give the plants the rest needed to recover. If droughts are common where you are, like here in West Texas, breeding herds should amount to no more than 50%-70% of the total carrying capacity.
Another thing to point out is that just because you have the acreage does not mean that it will be able to feed that number of cows. Things like weed population and even rock formations can impact the overall carrying capacity of your place. If you are wanting to find out what your place’s real stocking rate is then check out my previous post “Estimating your grazable acreage”.
Since we all know that conditions can change it is important to keep your stocking rate flexible. This is in order to make adjustments as needed. When things start to get drier than normal start reducing your herd size as needed. You can start with selling your stockers or yearlings first to protect the integrity of your breeding herd. Also, keep accurate performance records every year. So if you need to sell your breeding herd you will know which ones to get rid of first.
Take stock of weeds in pasture
Having too many weeds can impact the yield of your pasture. They will consume the water needed for your desirable forages while providing no benefits to your animals.
Take an inventory of each of your pastures to determine how big of a problem you have. Identify what types of weeds you have as well as what stage of growth they are in. Both of these factors will tell you what type of control methods you will need to use.
If there are not that many and they are in the early growth stages then simply mowing them should be enough to keep them in check. A herbicide treatment may be necessary, however, if there are a lot of them.
Supplement when neededÂ
Cattle grazing summer pastures may benefit from supplementing their diet to improve their overall diet quality. At this time of year, forages typically contain less crude protein and total digestible nutrients. Also, late summer forages will be less than early summer ones. This may be something to think about if forage availability is less than desirable.
On most pastures, it is not unreasonable to expect growing calf weight gains of a little less than 2 pounds per day on summer annual grasses. This can range from 1.5 to 2.5 per day depending on conditions. Bermudagrass topically supports an average daily gain of fewer than 1.5 pounds per day with ranges from 0.7 to 1.8 pounds per day. This will all depend on the type and its overall condition.
As with all types of management decisions, it is important to monitor the results. This is so you can make adjustments as needed. What works right now may not work for you in a couple of months.
To get a more in-depth look at how you should manage your pasture the NRCS has a booklet available called “Improving and sustaining forage production in pastures”.
