Recurring drought calls for forage producers to get back to the basics of farming, says University of Missouri Extension agronomist Terry Halleran.
“Practice standard farming practices to rebuild pastures following drought,” he says. Halleran spoke March 7 at the Christian County Livestock and Forage Conference in Clever, Missouri. Southwestern Missouri livestock producers have been especially hard hit from drought in recent years.
Missouri began December with 18% less hay stock than 2021, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Nationally, 2022 hay stocks dropped to their lowest numbers since the 1950s.
Halleran says forage and livestock producers should prepare for the inevitable – there’s going to be drought. Missouri has seen droughts in 20 of the last 23 years, according to data compiled by MU Extension climatologist Pat Guinan.
“Prepare for a problem before it occurs,” Halleran says. If you don’t, “you are going to be feeding high dollar hay,” he says. If you prepare and there’s no drought, you’ve lost nothing.
One way to prepare is to “get out of your tractor or pickup” to look at pastures, he says. Walk pastures and look for weak areas. Post-drought pastures may need time to recover. Expect weakened stands, thin pastures and lower supplies after drought. Also, expect more weeds.
Halleran gets back to the basics with these steps:
• Be patient. Practice patience when turning cows out onto fresh pastures. Wait until grass is 6-10 inches tall in rotational grazing systems and don’t allow cows to graze plants lower than 2 inches.
• Don’t be too patient. Get the most out of your hay crop by baling before July. Don’t wait too long to frost-seed legumes into pastures. Plant cool-season grasses in fall. Control weeds so that spring forages can compete against weed pressure.
• Act. Make honest calculations and then act. Many producers don’t know the yield of their pastures and don’t allow enough acreage per cow.
Source: missouri.edu
Categories: Missouri, Livestock, Dairy Cattle