Rotational grazing can control whitetop
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
Now you see it, now you don’t. That’s the story with the invasive and difficult-to-treat weed known as whitetop on Jake Yoder’s pastures outside of St. Ignatius. With NRCS assistance, this spring Jake Yoder implemented a high stock density grazing system on his pastures. Historically, Jake has hayed or grazed his pastures more conventionally. Under the conventional system, livestock had access to the entire 80-acre pasture and shunned the weeds never utilizing them and instead selectively grazed only their favorite forage species. As a result, desirable vegetation was overgrazed while numerous weed species encroached and increased in prevalence within the pastures. One weed in particular, whitetop, has greatly increased in scale and caused Jake considerable concern. After Jake implemented his new high stock density grazing system, the livestock utilized the whitetop heavily and nearly eliminated all seed development this year. The results are jaw dropping, to say the least.
Jake has begun dividing his larger pastures into two-acre paddocks, using temporary electric fencing. He rotates his 60 cow/calf pairs through the paddocks every two days. Under the new system, the livestock no longer ignore the less-palatable species and instead, utilize the weeds. One would expect livestock to utilize weeds if forage was limited. However, that is not the case here. An examination of the pasture shows uniform utilization of all plant species, with no single species over-utilized. For example, there are numerous palatable grass species, including orchard grass and meadow brome plants with seed heads standing directly within the grazed whitetop patch. By increasing his stock density, Jake has increased the competitiveness of his livestock and decreased their grazing selectivity.
The results thus far have been spectacular. In order to improve grazing management, one does not necessarily need to move livestock every day, or every other day; any improvement in livestock rotations can lead to significant benefits. By improving grazing management we can significantly reduce input costs including herbicide spraying, fertilization, dragging and harrowing and winter hay feeding costs while at the same time greatly increasing the amount of forage we produce.
In early June, a group of local producers visited Jake’s pasture during one of Lake County’s bi-weekly Pasture Walks. The Ronan NRCS office has organized Pasture Walks in an effort to promote improved pasture management within the agricultural community. Pasture Walks are held every other week, during the evenings, throughout the growing season. During each Pasture Walk, we visit a different landowner’s property in order to walk the pasture(s) as a group. The Pasture Walks provide an opportunity for landowners to come together in a low-stress, idea-sharing environment to facilitate improving pasture management and associated forage yields, quality and other issues. To date, the Pasture Walks have been very successful and extremely beneficial for participants and we welcome anyone who has an interest in pasture management.
During the Pasture Walk held at Jake Yoder’s property, the group was astounded at the level of whitetop utilization. Nobody within the group had ever seen anything like it. Under a conventional grazing system, livestock would have completely ignored the whitetop, resulting in a heavily-grazed pasture dotted with patches of ungrazed whitetop. When we stood in the middle of the now-grazed whitetop patch and looked at pictures showing the same patch in it’s “before grazing” condition, most of us couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Successes like these continue to build our level of confidence that improved management of our tame pastures can pay significant dividends for our producers, our natural resources (including our soil health) and our communities.
I am available to answer questions at (406) 676-2871, Ext. 111.
