Extending Grazing: Building a Year Round Grazing System

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Extending Grazing Building a Year Round Grazing
System

• Chris Teutsch
• Southern Piedmont AREC

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THINK SYSTEM . a forage/livestock system cannot
be managed effectively without a basic
understanding of how the soil, plant, and animal
components interact and how management decisions
and climatic conditions affect those
interactions. Jim Gerrish, Missouri Grazing
Manual
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Planning and Goal Setting
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CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSEFUL GRAZIERS
PROACTIVE INSTEAD OF REACTIVE KNOW WHERE THEY
WANT TO GO (OBJECTIVES) KNOW WHERE THEY ARE
(RESOURCES) PRIORITY (INCLINATIONS) CONSIDER
/EVALUATE NEW INFORMATION INTEGRATE
INTO THEIR SYSTEM
SOILS
ANIMALS
MANAGER
FORAGES
INFRASTRUCTURE
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Production vs Profitability

• US agriculture production oriented
• More is better! Right?
• Focus on making profitable decisions
• Increasing profit
• Increase the price we get for product
• Increase amount of product produced
• Decrease production costs
• Hay and supplements accounts for gt50 of cow-calf
  budgets (VCE, 2005)

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Amazing grazing!!!

Extending grazing Lower production costs
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Forage Options for the Mid-Atlantic Region
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The Silver Bullet
Miracle Forage Species Grows in the winter and
summer, tolerates close and frequent grazing,
excellent animal performance etc.

• A forage that solve all of our problems
• No replacement for good management!!!
• Verify claims objective source

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Selecting Forage Species

• Characteristics of forages species
• regionally adapted
• adapted to your soils
• high yielding
• high nutritive value
• drought and heat tolerant
• tolerant of close and frequent grazing
• persistent
• What are the options?

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Cool- and Warm-Season Grasses

• Cool-Season Grasses
• optimal growth at cooler temps (70 F)
• more digestible and higher in CP
• longer growing season
• Warm-Season Grasses
• optimal growth at higher temps (90 F)
• less digestible and lower in CP
• more drought tolerant
• more efficient at using water

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Growth Curves for Common Forages
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Tall Fescue

• Best adapted cool-season grass
• Positives
• drought tolerant
• forms tough sod
• tolerates abuse
• persistent
• stockpiles well
• Negatives
• less palatable
• endophyte

Learn to use it !!!
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A New Chapter in the Endophyte Story

• Endophyte infected tall fescue
• Reduced animal performance
• Tolerance to drought and grazing
• Endophyte free tall fescue
• Excellent animal performance
• Poor persistence
• Novel Endophyte
• Animal performance similar to endophtye free
• Persistence similar to toxic endophyte
• Long-term persistence data on farms
• Seed cost limiting adoption

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Orchardgrass

• High nutritive value
• Palatable
• Hay or Pasture
• Bunchgrass-forms open sod
• Does not tolerate close and frequent defoliation
• Limited summer growth
• Limited persistence
• Insect problems

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Tall Fescue Variety Trial at TAREC
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Tall Fescue Variety Trial at TAREC
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Stockpiling Cool-Season Grasses

• Stockpiling
• allowing forage growth to accumulate
• normally done in fall
• best option for extending grazing
• Seasonal Distribution

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Stockpiling Cool-Season Grasses
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Utilizing Stockpiled Forage

• Always utilize grass-legume mixture first
• Strip graze
• maximizes utilization
• only enough forage for 7-14 d
• no back fence needed

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Nitrogen Rate and Source Study

• Little information on N sources
• Applied 0, 40, 80, and 120 lb N/A in mid-Aug
  2002, 2003 and 2004
• Nitrogen sources were ammonium nitrate (34),
  ammonium sulfate (21), broiler litter, complete
  fertilizer (18-9-9), urea ammonium nitrate (30),
  and urea (46)
• Plots were harvested in mid-December

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Nitrogen Rate and Source
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Cows in the Corn-Corn for Grazing?

• Corn residue commonly grazed
• Standing corn for late winter grazing
• Planted Grazing and Conventional corn and
  Sorghum-Sudangrass
• Harvested from Nov to Mar monthly
• Separated into leaves, husk-shank, ear, stalk,
  and collected surface residue
• Calculated yield and contribution
• Determined nutritive value

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Graze or harvest?
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Grazing Corn Yield
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Contribution of Plant Parts to Yield
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Whole Plant TDN
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Whole Plant Crude Protein
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Agro-Economics

• Assumptions
• DM yield is 10,000 lb/A
• DMI of 27.5 lb/day
• utilization rate of 75

• production cost is 220/A
• utilization cost 20/A
• 15 feeding loss for hay
• hay is at 12 moisture

Grazing Days/A Corn (10000 lb DM/A 0.75)
27.5 lb DM/day 273 days
Cost per Grazing Day for Corn 240 total cost
273 grazing days 0.879/day
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How does that compare to hay?
Grazing Days/ton hay 1496 lb DM/ton hay 27.5
lb DM/day 54 days/ton hay
Cost at which grazing corn is equal to buying hay
54 grazing days 0.879 /grazing day 47/ton
hay
If you can buy or make hay of equal quality for lt
47/ton, then you are better off to use hay.
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Bermudagrass(Wiregrass)
Weed or Wonder?
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Bermudagrass History

• Origin southeast Africa
• Imported to Georgia in 1751
• Tom Spaldings Dairy
• If ever this becomes a grazing country it must
  be through the instrumentality of this grass.
• In 1800s called most important pasture grass in
  South
• Soon became a weed in row crops
• Today found in half of pastures in the south

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Seeded Bermudagrass

• Bermudagrass is adapted to Virginia
• Relatively little planted
• Vegetative establishment
• Seeded bermudagrass
• Facilitate adoption
• Cultivar
• Single pure variety
• Blend
• Mixture of several varieties, AZ common, giant
• Same trade name, but different mixture

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Average Yield for 2002-06
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Dinwiddie County, VA
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Forage Quality August 15, 2002
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Persistence Cold Tolerance
Million dollar question!!!
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Green Up-5/21/2003
Wrangler
KF 194
Cheyenne
SunGrazer
Wrangler
Ranchero Frio
Pasto Rico
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Bermudagrass Variety Trial 2003
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Bermudagrass Variety Trial 2003
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Selecting a Variety

• Yield is important
• Cold tolerance is more important
• Do not use varieties that include Giant and/or
  Arizona Common
• Disease resistance??????

Extreme cold will kill all varieties!!!
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Impact of Nitrogen Rate and Source on the Yield
of Seeded Bermudagrass
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Materials and Methods

• Wrangler bermudagrass sod
• O to 500 lb N applied as ammonium nitrate
  (30-30-30-10 split)
• Organic Sources-250 lb N/A at green up
• Pelleted biosolid (Leesburg, VA)
• Digested biosolid (Richmond, VA)
• Broiler Litter (Amelia County, VA)
• Harvested and weighed plots

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Seeded Bermuda Response to N Rate
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Nitrogen Profit Maximization
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Annual Forages

• Supply forage during summer and winter deficit
  periods
• Advantages
• fast germination and emergence
• rapid growth
• high productivity and quality
• flexibility of utilization
• Disadvantages
• Establishment cost 120 to 140
• increased risk of stand failures
• hard to cure

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Annual Forages

• Supply forage during summer and winter deficit
  periods
• Advantages
• fast germination and emergence
• rapid growth
• high productivity and quality
• flexibility of utilization
• Disadvantages
• Establishment cost 120 to 140
• increased risk of stand failures
• hard to cure

Profitable grazing systems will be based on well
adapted perennial sods that are supplemented with
annuals.
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Sorghum Species

• Tall growing, coarse stemmed annual
• Forage sorghum, sudangrass, sorghum x sudangrass
  hybrids
• Adapted to well-drained, fertile soils
• Does not tolerate acidity (pH 6.0 to 6.5)
• Variety Selection
• little difference in yield
• choose based on seed cost
• Nitrate accumulator
• Prussic acid concern!!!!

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Pearl Millet

• Smaller stems and leafier
• Better adapted to acid soils (pH 5.5 to 6.5)
• More cold sensitive than sorghums
• Good drought tolerance
• better on sandier soils than sorghums
• Grazing in 45-60 days
• Nitrate accumulator
• No prussic acid!!!
• Variety Selection
• little difference in yield between varieties
• based on seed cost and availability

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Crabgrass

• Well adapted to southern and eastern VA
• Annual that acts like a perennial (reseed)
• Double cropped with winter annual
• Species of opportunity
• Good yield potential
• Excellent forage quality
• Higher than bermudagrass
• No prussic acid
• Nitrate accumulator
• Red River only variety

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Nitrogen Rate Total Seasonal Yield
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First Harvest in 2001 (60 days after seeding)
Red River Crabgrass
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Forage Quality

• In Vitro Digestibility
• 75 to 90 (Teutsch et al., 2005)
• Crude Protein
• 6 to 14 (Teutsch et al., 2005)
• Increased with nitrogen fertilization
• Average Daily Gain (Dalrymple, 1994)
• Poor to fair quality crabgrass 0.6 to 1.5 lb/day
• Medium quality crabgrass 1.85
• Excellent quality crabgrass 2.35
• Bermudagrass 1lb/day, Crabgrass 1.75 lb/day

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Nitrate Accumulation in Crabgrass
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Small Grains for Forage

• Adapted statewide
• Grazed, silage or hay
• Double cropped with summer annuals
• Wheat most versatile
• Rye least exacting soil requirements, earliest
• Barley best on well-drained fertile soils
• Winter oats palatable, lower yielding

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Small Grain Forage Trial
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Annual Ryegrass Variety Trials
Southern Piedmont AREC
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Annual Ryegrass

• High yielding with excellent quality
• Can be grazed, hayed, or ensiled
• Regrows after cutting until June
• Adapted to wide range of soils
• Consistent production
• Requires nitrogen fertilization
• Overseed bermudagrass or double crop with summer
  annual
• Serious weed in small grains

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Annual Ryegrass Variety Trial-2003
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Why use legumes?

• Benefits of legumes
• higher yields and forage quality
• improved summer growth
• FREE NITROGEN
• dilution of endophyte infected tall fescue

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Alfalfa

• Long-lived perennial
• Deep tap-root
• Drought tolerance
• Fixes 150-250 lb N/yr
• Well-drained soils
• Needs high fertility
• Rotational grazing
• Does not frost seed
• Can cause bloat

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Red Clover

• Most important pasture legume
• Short-lived perennial
• Common 1-2 years
• Improved 2-3 years
• Good drought tolerance
• Excellent seedling vigor
• Easily established
• frost seeding

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White Clover

• Important in pastures
• Three types
• small, medium, large
• Ladino or large type produces 3-5X
• Stolons
• well adapted to grazing
• Poor drought tolerance
• persists via reseeding
• Very high in quality

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Sericea Lespedeza

• Long-lived perennial, warm-season, nonbloating
• Well adapted to VA NC
• Extremely drought tolerant
• Tolerant of acid soils
• Newer cultivars
• Lower tannins, finer stems, grazing tolerant
• Grazed rotationally
• Poor seedling vigor
• Establishment difficult

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Putting it all together!

• Goal Year-Round Grazing
• Potential system for Mid-Atlantic Region

• Year-round grazing requires management

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Southern Piedmont AREC Field Day