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 Pasture & Range: October 2006 Other Pasture & Range Articles |
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by Matt Mattox |
Most, if not all, cattle operations in the southern Great Plains have been adversely affected by two years of drought conditions. In our travels, we have noticed that the majority of the most adversely affected forages are bermudagrass pastures. While that is a bad thing, we must also note that those who manage both bermudagrass and rangeland have learned (some the hard way) that overgrazing rangeland in a drought results in a much longer road back than overgrazing tame pastures such as bermudagrass. If a prior drought has already taught you that lesson, overgrazing tame pasture instead of range will help keep your rangelands productive for both livestock and wildlife.
Recent rainfall has perked up some bermudagrass, but we are late in the growing season, and some of the pastures are much too sparse to recover much before frost. Many of you already have planted small grains for grazing, and I hope many of you have considered ryegrass as an overseeded annual on bermudagrass pastures. If you haven't, it is still not too late to overseed ryegrass this fall, and now there should be very little competition from bermudagrass to retard ryegrass germination. However, if all of your bermudagrass pastures have recovered with recent rainfall, this article is not for you.
Because much of the southern Great Plains depends on bermudagrass for cattle production, I am only recommending overseeding on pastures that are low in vigor or have been declining over the last few years. The idea, this year, is to allow the pastures that are recoverable to not be grazed until they can accumulate ample forage through 30 to 45 days of the best chance for rainfall (April to mid-May) next year. Unless we have a mild late fall and winter, most of the ryegrass production will be in the spring – therefore, it is very likely you will have to spread the cattle out on the ryegrass this winter. Plan on overseeding with at least 20 pounds of annual ryegrass seed, and do not initiate grazing until you can't pull the grass out by the roots and preferably until you have at least 5 to 6 inches of growth.
In the spring, regroup cattle into one herd, and rotate to fresh pasture when the ryegrass averages 4 to 5 inches tall. Delay grazing bermudagrass pastures that aren't overseeded until you have at least two pastures in front of the cattle with an average of 4 inches of accumulated growth. If you don't have enough ryegrass, this may necessitate that you "dry-lot" cattle with hay and/or byproduct feeds such as soybean hulls. This scenario will not provide the best ryegrass re-seeding potential. However, remember that the reason for the ryegrass in this situation is to allow recoverable bermudagrass pastures to regain vigor before grazing again next year. Normally, we think of ryegrass as complementary forage that can extend small grain pasture for stockers or a key forage for a fall-calving cow herd. With the limited availability of small grain seed and the price of ryegrass seed being close to normal, this year we need to think of it as a tool to help get bermudagrass back into production.