The Cattleman February 2010 - Reasons for Planned Grazing

Share |

Planned Grazing 2
Reasons for Planned Grazing

By Lorie Woodward Cantu

Editor's Note: This is the second installment in a 12-part series on planned grazing. This series has been created in partnership with Dr. Richard Teague, associate resident director and professor at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Vernon; Dr. C. Wayne Hanselka, a private range management consultant based in Corpus Christi, who also serves as professor and Extension specialist emeritus with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service; and individual ranchers experienced in using planned grazing.

Additional resource information will be posted on The Cattleman's Web site, texascattleraisers.org.

Because planned grazing is a management and decision-making tool, it appeals to different people for different reasons. For John Welch, who ranches in southeastern Colorado with his family and manages the Spade Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, the ecological changes he witnessed made him believe in the program's potential.

"I read a lot about planned grazing, but I'm one of those people who have to see it to believe it," Welch says.

He first saw it for himself when his family took over a lease place in their home state of Colorado. Welch noticed that there were 20-foot circles where the grass had been grazed down to an inch tall surrounded by areas of grass that were standing six inches tall. These "alien circles" were scattered all over the ranch.

As Welch implemented the cycles of grazing, rest and recovery that characterize planned grazing, he discovered that big bluestem, one of the region's most palatable grasses, was growing in those circles. When given the chance, the big bluestem expanded and now makes up a bigger portion of the mix of grasses on the ranch.

"With planned grazing, you don't introduce new grass species, but the rest and recovery gives the good ones a chance to compete with the less desirable ones," Welch says.

Increasing the diversity of grass species on the ranch also increases the mix of cool and warm season grasses, extending the grazing season.

"Once I implemented planned grazing, I began noticing that the pastures green up earlier in the spring and stay green longer in the fall," Welch says. "To keep our costs down, I try to feed as little as possible. If my cows are eating something that I'm growing on the ranch, it is cheaper than anything that I might be pouring out of a bag."

Planned grazing also helps Welch manage the effects of drought by quantifying how much grazing is available on the ranch.

"In a continuous grazing system, the effects are almost invisible because the changes take place incrementally over time. There's not an obvious change from day to day, which makes it difficult to know when it is time to pull cattle off the range," Welch says. "It's easy to leave the livestock on too long and cause damage."

While planned grazing does not drought-proof a ranch, it gives the manager a very clear idea of how many grazing days remain during a dry spell, he says. For instance, if ranchers have 10 pastures ahead of them in the rotation and each of those pastures has approximately 12 days of grazing, the operation has a 120-day cushion. If it hasn't started to rain as the herd reaches the end of the rotation, then it is clear that the operator needs to take action, either by finding additional grazing lands or reducing the herd.

Removing livestock at the appropriate time also helps grass recover from drought, coming back faster and more vigorously, Welch says.

"If your cattle continually consume more grass than you grow, bad things happen in the world of grass," he says.

Dr. Wayne Hanselka, a private range management consultant and Extension specialist emeritus, says, "Continuous grazing, particularly in drought conditions stresses the plant, eventually weakening its root system. If ranchers allow their plants to recover after grazing, and in dry years reduce their cattle numbers adequately and in a timely manner, the grass's root system will be preserved. When the rain begins to fall, the grass is primed to spring back."

Welch recalled that in 2002 his Colorado ranch received fewer than four inches of rainfall in a 12-month period. But when it began to rain again, the range responded quickly and the family was able to restock at full carrying capacity within the year.

Planned grazing has also helped Welch improve the efficiency of his operation. By concentrating his cattle in a relatively small geographic area, he is able to concentrate his efforts and those of his employees in a small area, saving time and fuel because they are not traveling from pasture to pasture over the whole ranch.

He has also enjoyed moderate gains in his stocking rate.

"In my experience in the part of the country where we ranch, which is relatively dry, you can't double your stocking rate, but you can increase it somewhat over a moderately stocked continual grazing system," he says. "I could intensify it, but because of the constant threat of drought, I'd rather take it slow and maintain a cushion."

Hanselka says successful operators work to improve the range before increasing stocking rate proportionally while remaining flexible and acting in a timely manner when the next drought occurs.

The flexibility of Planned Grazing is one part of the system's appeal because operators can implement it as intensively as makes sense for them, Hanselka says.

"It is a system that is designed to meet the goals of the rancher," he says. "Some people operate at a very high intensity, where they are moving cattle almost daily. Others, like John, operate at a moderate intensity, where they may move cattle on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, depending on the availability of grass."

In addition to the system's flexibility, Welch continues to use planned grazing for one primary reason: it allows him to rest the ranch about 340 days a year, every year.

"In our rotations, we graze each pasture no more than 24 days out of the year, meaning that it is resting for the other 341 days. If your land is being rested more than it's being grazed, then chances are that rain is going to fall on that resting land and grass is going to grow. Obviously, you have to fine-tune and monitor the system, but if I can rest my range 93 percent of the time, it makes good sense," Welch says.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: TSCRA is offering two opportunities for its members to learn more about planned grazing.

March 19 to 20, TSCRA's School for Successful Ranching will offer in its Emerging Issues Track a session titled "Grazing for the future." John Welch will be a speaker at this track, which will feature an in-depth discussion of planned grazing and holistic management, and how to apply it in your operation. Your decisions about grazing and resource management today will determine if you'll have forages to graze in the future. Visit texascattleraisers.org and navigate to "2010 Annual Convention & School" in the lower left of the page.

April 21 to 25, TSCRA and Holistic Management Texas will offer a planned grazing course at the Will Rogers Memorial Center, Fort Worth. This five-day course will emphasize grazing planning, but instructor Kirk Gadzia will also teach about rangeland monitoring, financial planning and land planning. The content will be relevant to managerial and operational level employees with varying levels of formal education. There will be a hands-on learning aspect, if weather permits. Classes run from 8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. each day.

Gadzia, is co-author of the National Academy of Sciences book, "Rangeland Health." He holds a bachelor of science degree in wildlife biology and a master of science in range science. Founder of Resource Management Services, LLC, Gadzia is a Certified Educator with Holistic Management International. For more information on this April school, please contact Amy Normand at 830-868-2427.

"Planned Grazing 2" is from the February 2010 issue of The Cattleman magazine.