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Issue # 629
March 25, 2009
Forage Focus: Spring Pasture Management - Mark Landefeld, Extension Educator, Monroe County
The time of year is quickly approaching when keeping pasture plants in a vegetative state is probably the hardest for forage producers. Managing pasture growth early in the growing season is important to maintain high quality and high quantity forage production throughout the spring, summer and fall. A "spring flush" occurs in cool season grasses because the optimum temperature for growth occurs and the most important nutrient, water, is readily available. Growth distribution of cool season grasses and most legumes are greatest in the spring when air temperatures are 70-85 degrees.
Start moving animals through your first paddocks when soil conditions permit and the plants are a few inches tall. Rotate livestock through paddocks or fields at a pace which gives them just enough time to graze the tops off the forage. Move on to the next field and let livestock graze the same way. This will help stagger forage growth, keep more plants in a vegetative state and reduce seedhead formation as the season progresses. This is a good strategy, but being able to keep ahead of grass growth when the temperatures warm and the growth explosion occurs is easier to say than it is to do.
In the first rotation each spring livestock preferences are not very noticeable, but as grasses and legumes grow livestock preferences for certain forages begin to show and uneven grazing patterns appear. Problems arise in many paddocks across Ohio because fescue is mixed with orchardgrass, bluegrass, ryegrass and clovers. If allowed, cattle will eat other grasses and clovers to the ground and leave the fescue standing. Using heavy stocking density on small paddocks at this time may help, but moving livestock frequently will be necessary to make this approach work. After the first or second week of May, in our area, if you have fescue plants that have been refused to this point, they will not likely be grazed in the next rotation or in the remainder of the summer rotations. If large amounts of un-grazed fescue persist in the paddock, clipping or bush-hogging should be considered as an option. This will stop seed-head production, reduce shading of other plants and may allow more favorable grass/legume growth in the paddock. Remember, taking proper care of the forage plants is the key to high quantity and high quality forage production throughout the year.
Soil that is too wet can complicate grazing management too. When livestock repeatedly trample wet soil, the soil aggregates are broken down, and air spaces in the soil are reduced. This process is called pugging. Care should be taken so pugging does not take place over large portions of your grazing area. Severe pugging can decrease forage growth for weeks maybe months, so fencing livestock onto a heavy use pad or using a smaller sacrifice area to feed hay in, may be the best option if conditions like this exist. Paddocks that are well drained or those that are predominantly fescue are good choices to use early. If minor pugging does occur, plant production will not decline very much. It may even boost production of clovers because opening the soil can stimulate new plant growth if viable clover seeds are present.
Forages in early spring pastures are extremely lush. Plant material is only about 15% dry matter while crude protein is generally high, possibly 25-30%. Hay or supplemental feed should still be provided during the early rotations to be sure adequate dry matter is in the animal's diet. Cattle producers, be sure to supply free choice mineral mixtures with adequate amounts of magnesium (12-14% Mg in the mineral mix) at this time of year and move the minerals along to each new paddock. This reduces chances of grass tetany in livestock that are grazing fast growing grass-dominate paddocks.
As rotations continue into mid and late May, more volume of forage should be growing in each paddock. Cool season grasses attempt to reproduce in the spring by shooting seedheads. If plants are allowed to flower and set seed, the quality of forage and production may be greatly decreased the remainder of the growing season. Regulating livestock consumption in each paddock to keep grass in a vegetative state should be the manager's objective.
If legumes are the predominant species in a paddock, do not turn livestock into the forage while plants are wet. Bloat may occur. Wait until the surface moisture dries and feed hay before livestock enter these paddocks to reduce chances of bloat.
It is important to look ahead and monitor forage growth in your paddocks. Often, livestock cannot utilize all the grass produced in each paddock by the second or third rotation; therefore as a manager we must make decisions of how to handle the excess grass growth. What should we do if we have extra grass accumulating in the next paddocks? Selected paddocks could be made into hay and those paddocks brought back into the rotation later, but the grass should really be cut no later than the boot stage to keep these plants in a vegetative growing state. The problem with this strategy is, if we mow paddocks when we should, to keep plants in their maximum vegetative stage, (mid May) we usually cannot get the grass dry to make the hay. Clipping or bush-hogging some forage a few days apart in early May could be advantageous, even if it cannot be baled for hay. This will keep plants vegetative and highly productive so uninterrupted rotations can continue the next time around.
Many managers do however, leave those unneeded paddocks grow until haymaking weather arrives, usually June, then make the hay from the forage that was not needed or could not be grazed at the proper height/stage. Be careful not to set aside too many paddocks if you choose this method because you may find yourself in a deficit situation for forage the correct grazing height as you make your next rotation in late June. Re-growth from set aside fields may not be ready to graze again until mid July depending on temperatures and moisture availability.
Wise use of fertilizer in the spring is also an important part of pasture growth management. Do not heavily fertilize all of your pastures early in the spring. If you need more pasture early, only fertilize a few of your paddocks. Late May or early June is a better time for fertilization. This will have several benefits. First, you are not adding to the excess growth problem most managers have in the spring. Second, you will be feeding the forage plants at a time before warmer and dryer weather is about to begin. The plants can use the nutrients at this time to maximize productivity before the "summer slump" occurs in late July and August. This provides additional growth at a time when it will be needed by the livestock and quality of this forage should still be very high. The type of forage and amount of forage produced in your paddocks is directly related to your pasture management practices.
Look at your paddocks and project in your mind what you think they will look like 2-3 weeks in the future based on the growing conditions. Then match your projected growth with what you actually observe at that later date. Doing this on a regular basis throughout different stages of the growing season helps one become a better grass manager.
Summary: If we use our livestock to harvest the forage we want them to harvest, at the time it needs to be harvested, better forage quality will be produced and greater quantity can be generated. The plants, the animals and you will be rewarded for properly managing the "spring flush".
Why Do We Make Hay? - reprinted from the 1998 "Forage Systems Update," Forage Systems Research Center, Linneus, MO, Jim Gerrish, Editor
Do you ever stop and think why exactly do we make hay? That is, what is the primary objective for making hay? The most common response would be: to provide winter feed. That certainly is a high priority, but what happens when we let that be our main objective?
Generally, we start the season by identifying where we are going to make hay, based on the expectation of harvesting X number of bales so that we can feed hay for X number of days. We tend to delay harvest until we have favorable weather which results in lower quality hay as cool-season grasses mature. Frequently, harvest comes so late that the regrowth following hay harvest is poor, offering limited opportunities for fall grazing. The net outcome is that the grazing season is shortened and we are left facing a long hay feeding season with marginal quality hay.
I would suggest another approach to hay making starting from a fundamentally different point of view. Rather than having generating X number of bales as the basic reason for making hay, consider hay making as a tool to manage pasture quality and supply. With this approach, we will generally start making hay earlier in the season, accepting greater risk of unfavorable weather but most likely producing higher quality hay, though lower yield. Regrowth is likely to be significantly greater than following later hay harvests due to more favorable soil moisture and temperature levels. Because of better regrowth on hayed pastures, the main body of pasture will not need to be grazed as severely, allowing for a rest period going into the fall season and allowing more pasture to be stockpiled, thus shortening the hay feeding season.
Plant maturity is generally considered to have the greatest effect on pasture and hay quality. Digestibility typically decreases at a rate of about 1/2 percent per day following boot state in cool season grasses. Based on this rate of decline, delaying harvest for three weeks after boot to wait for more favorable weather would result in a digestibility loss of ten percent. To put this in context, if digestibility is sixty percent at boot and declines to fifty percent three weeks later, the hay has gone from being adequate for a lactating beef cow to being inadequate for even maintenance of a cow.
Several researchers have reported the quality loss due to increased grass maturity to be significantly greater than loss incurred if the hay had been harvested at boot stage and rained on. While this trend is certainly true for grass and grass-dominant hay, alfalfa and other legumes are much more susceptible to serious weather damage. However, if we are considering hay harvest from pastures, in all likelihood it will be a grass-dominant sward.
If we are harvesting hay from paddocks in a rotational grazing system, there are again two different approaches to determine where hay is harvested. One approach is to designate certain paddocks at the beginning of the season to be harvested for winter feed. An advantage of this approach is that paddocks may be selected on the basis of ease of harvest or managing a particular weed problem. An alternative approach is to graze all the pastures initially and then identify the paddocks where grazing management has been least effective and use hay harvest as a tool to clean up grazing management mistakes. This approach certainly makes the farm look more attractive for a summer field day!
So before you fire up the equipment this spring or even before you turn the stock out, think about why you are making hay and what you would really like to accomplish with haying in the context of your total forage-livestock system. Good pasture management extends the grazing season and reduces the need for hay. Poor hay crop management shortens the grazing season and increases the need for hay.
No Matter How You Slice It, It's P to K, 1 to 4, 13 to 50! - Stan Smith, PA, OSU Extension, Fairfield County
Through the series of drought, escalating price, managing dynamic change, and every other type of 'stress' meeting we've hosted in Ohio the past three years, it's apparent that the message regarding fertility is getting out there. While not a new story, simply put, fertilizer is expensive yet we all know you can't starve a profit into a cow, and likewise, you can't starve production or profit into a forage field either.
This winter I'm seeing significantly more interest in soil testing, as well as receiving questions about interpreting soil tests and developing efficient fertilizer recommendations. It's also apparent some of those who make fertilizer recommendations have not attended our meetings, or do not subscribe the concepts contained in the Tri-State Fertilizer Recommendations, OSU Extension bulletin E-2567!
Hence, let's review:
a) Soil Test, always soil test! Fertilizer is too expensive to apply if it's not a yield limiting factor. If we don't know what we presently have, we can't possibly know what we might need! Here's a link to a list of soil testing labs.
b) Read the soil test or get help reading it. I'd discourage anyone from blindly accepting the fertilizer recommendations that sometimes come back with a soil test. I'm not even certain I'd believe their little graphs that I sometimes find on the soil test results which indicate a sample might be high, medium or low in a certain nutrient. What I was recently told by one of the labs when I asked how their recommendations are generated is that after they establish the nutrient levels in the soil through their laboratory procedures, the recommendations are often generated based on the opinions of the company who might have submitted the sample for the land owner. This means, unless you send in the sample yourself, you may get back a recommendation based on data other than what Ohio State's (or other midwest universities') research might suggest as published in OSU Extension Bulletin E-2567. Ask you local Agriculture Educator for help in developing a recommendation if you have questions.
c) If one insists on fertilizing without the benefit of knowing the present fertility levels, or if you know your present fertility levels meet or slightly exceed critical minimum levels, then it's prudent to base your fertilizer application rates on expected crop removal. If you are harvesting hay from the field, Bulletin E2567 tells us every ton removed (regardless of quality) takes with it 13 pounds of P2O5 and 50 pounds of K2O. No matter how you slice it, that's a ratio of 1 to 4, phosphorus to potash. Without benefit of a soil test to tell us otherwise, fertility needs to be replaced in that ratio when harvesting hay.
To put that into a little different perspective, consider that the average hay yield in Ohio is and has been for decades about 3 tons per acre per year. At 1 to 4, that's 13 and 50 pounds respectively multiplied times 3, or 39 pounds of P2O5 and 150 pounds of K2O per acre. As an FYI, since corn grain only removes about 0.27 pounds of K2O per bushel, it would take a yield of over 555 bushels of corn to remove the same amount of potash that an average Ohio hay yield removes!
To recap . . . you can't starve a profit into a crop or critter, and one ton of hay removes P and K in a ratio of 1 to 4, or 13 pounds P2O5 to 50 pounds of K2O. To maintain current fertility levels in your soils, it must be replaced with either fertilizer, manure nutrients, or some other form of fertility . . .1 to 4, 13 to 50, per ton of hay removed!
Weekly Roberts Agricultural Commodity Market Report - Mike Roberts, Commodity Marketing Agent, Virginia Tech
CORN futures on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) closed down on Monday. MAY'09 corn futures closed at $3.954/bu; off 1.0¢/bu but 3.0+¢/bu higher than this time last week. The JULY'09 contract closed at $4.060/bu; down 1.0¢/bu but 4.25¢/bu higher than last Monday. DEC'09 corn futures finished at $4.272/bu; off 0.75¢/bu but up 5.75¢/bu over a week ago. After reaching highs not seen in over 8 weeks farmer selling picked up and knocked the wind out of the price run up. Federal action continues to affect all markets while sending the U.S. stock market soaring. Exports remain lack luster coming in at 29.984 mi bu vs. 47.727 mi bu this time last year. USDA did confirm the sale of 110,000 tones (4.3 mi bu) of '08/'09 U.S. corn to South Korea. Some weather concerns were noted regarding delayed planting due to cool, wet weather slowing fieldwork. Farmer-hedge sales pressured futures to below chart support levels as sell-stops under $4.00/bu in May futures were noted. Higher crude oil prices were supportive. Cash corn bids in the U.S. Midwest were steady to firm on Monday. In the U.S. Mid-Atlantic states cash corn prices were 2.0-5.0¢/bu lower than previous bids. Ethanol margins narrowed on rising corn prices. Funds bought over 2,000 contracts as large speculators turned net bullish for the first time in a while. The market is still very jittery. One floor source said it best, "If we get a big jump this week, people are going to take the money while it lasts. It's very risky at this time." The time to get your old crop corn sold is NOW as this sales window is not expected to last. It is a very good idea to get the '09 crop priced to 45% if you haven't done so already. Feed purchasers should wait at least another week or two to buy.
LIVE CATTLE futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) finished higher Monday. APR'09LC futures closed at $85.950/cwt; up $0.75/cwt. The AUG'09LC contract was up $0.325/cwt at $84.400/cwt and $1.400/cwt over a week ago. USDA's Cattle on Feed report issued last Friday showed lighter-than-expected February placements and feedlot supplies at their lowest levels in four years. Fund buying on strong DOW performance and rising crude oil prices was supportive. The USDA report put 11.228 mi head in feedlots as of March 1. This was 95% of one-year-ago totals and the smallest supply for this time of year since 2005. Cash cattle strengthened in many markets from $2-$3/cwt as USDA put the 5-area average at $82.90/cwt on Monday. USDA on Monday put Choice Boxed beef at $135.09/cwt; up $1.90/cwt. Packers continue to have a hard time finding profitable margins. There are news reports of slowing processing lines soon. According to HedgersEdge.com average packer margins were placed at a negative $42.55/head based on the average buy of $81.35/cwt vs. the average breakeven of $78.14/cwt. Feed buyers should hold off on purchases at this time as current corn prices have a good chance of deflating.
FEEDER CATTLE at the CME closed up on Monday. The APR'09FC contract closed at $94.000 /cwt; up $0.750cwt and $1.950/cwt over last Monday's close. AUG'09FC futures finished at $99.175/cwt; up $0.950/cwt. Gains in live cattle, bullish momentum from last Friday's bullish report, short covering, and technical buy stops were supportive. Spreaders bought May and sold March ahead of the expiry date for that contract on March 26. Action by the federal government lowering interest rates and reports of the toxic-assets support plan encouraged feeder cattle buyers seeking credit for purchases in the cash market. A couple of floor sources reported higher cash prices early Monday in Oklahoma City on top of last week's gains of $1-$3/cwt. The CME Feeder Cattle Index for March 19 was placed at $92.99/cwt; up $0.28/cwt. Hold off on buying feed for a week or two if you can. If you can't, buy only very short-term needs.
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BEEF Cattle is a weekly publication of Ohio State University Extension in Fairfield County and the OSU Beef Team. Contributors include members of the Beef Team and other beef cattle specialists and economists from across the U.S.
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