Greg Brann, Author at Greg Brann Consulting

Timely Tips – September 2021

Fall Hay Feeding

Why in the world would you feed hay in the fall when you could be grazing? Fall hay feeding may be counter-intuitive, but the benefits can be advantageous, especially if your pastures are already grazed to a minimum grazing height (3” for tall fescue and 4” for orchard grass). Maintaining minimum grazing height is always a benefit, but it can pay the most in the fall. Fall growth can significantly reduce cattle costs by reduced hay feeding. By feeding hay in September and October and not grazing over 20% of our pastures, we can stockpile fall growth on the remaining 80% of our pastures. This time of year, pastures can grow 20-40 pounds of forage per acre per day, so it’s possible to grow up to twice as much forage as the hay we would feed in the same period. In January, we can’t grow grass, so fall hay feeding extends the growing season, and less hay is fed during times we can’t grow grass. Feed the hay on lower fertility pastures or weedy fields.

TOP THIRD GRAZING

Top third grazing is my preferred grazing method, but with higher stocking, I somehow slip into “take half leave half.” To get the full benefits of third top grazing, you needed to start this method sometime in June or July. That way, you could graze instead of fall feeding.

CREATE A MIRACLE – PROTECT MINIMUM GRAZING HEIGHT IN THE WINTER

If you want to see a miracle performance of your pastures in spring, don’t graze below 4 inches throughout the winter. Begin grazing after the grass is 6-8” tall with dense growth. Forage growth will be 2- 4 weeks later when pastures are grazed lower. I don’t like any pastures to be grazed below 2” in the winter.

You can experiment by removing stock from some of your pastures while the grass is still 4” tall. The most significant benefits come when the soil has organic matter of 3% or higher, pH of 6.2 to 7.2, P and K in the medium-high range.

HAY AND THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

It is easy to fall into the trap of needing more hay. Hay is an extractive process, removing nutrients from the soil and transporting those nutrients to the ground where the hay is fed. The ruminant animal returns 85% of nutrients to the land, which hit the field with good management. Otherwise, they are a potential environmental issue and don’t aid in sustaining or improving soil fertility. Without adding nutrients back to the hay fields, yields drop, and the need for more hay land increases and pastureland decreases. Before you know it, more and more land goes into hay production, and you have less pasture, thus continuing the downward spiral.

A general balanced spread of land is 2/3rds pasture and 1/3 hay. Although it is admirable to produce all of your needs from your own land, I recommend buying your hay. The available nutrients (N,P,K) in hay are typically worth about 2/3rds of the cost of the hay. Buying hay allows you to graze all of your land and bring in nutrients from another farm. One downfall to this idea is that you’re also possibly bringing in weed seeds. Oh well, you can use them as an excuse and blame those weeds on someone else. Or are they forbs?

GROUNDING YOUR ELECTRIC FENCE

Everyone agrees the biggest issue with most electric fencing is the grounding, assuming you start with a charger with enough joules.

SIZING A CHARGER

Ideally, buy a charger that has one joule per mile of fence wire. The next rule of thumb is to have one ground rod per joule. That works fine for chargers less than 10 joules, but my charger is a 36 joule, and I don’t want to put in 36 ground rods. Another method of checking to see if you have enough ground rods is to ground out the fence about 300’ from the charger with something like a steel post, then test the ground rod, and it shouldn’t have over 500 volts on the ground rod. Some of my electric fencing is now more than 40 years old, so some maintenance was in order. We added several ground rods and, with a bit of clean-up, we increased the charge by 4,000 volts.

My dad always said, “the best fence is good grass,” but we don’t want to be limited by our fence. Another of my dad’s sayings was, “you don’t want your fences to be too good; otherwise, they can’t get back in.”

In summary, inventory and manage what you have; consider planting something that fills a void in your forage chain, natural or planted.

Respect minimum grazing heights and graze at a stock density of 10,000 lb or higher per acre with an average grazing period of 1-3 days and an average recovery period of 45 days. Maintain fertility in the medium range with a pH of 6.2 to 7.2.

Fall Seeding

Where I have a mediocre stand of perennial grass and lots of legumes. I plan to seed the following mix in early September.

Species Pounds per ac

Cereal rye 40

Barley 40

Wheat 20

Ryegrass 8

Chicory 1

Forage turnip 1

Buckwheat 1

Sunflower 1

Perennial pasture is the cheapest source of pasture; however, if you have excessive legumes, it’s hard to establish perennials since perennial grasses are slower to establish than annuals. Forage annuals cost about the same, per pound, as hay, but annuals are about 2x the quality. It’s essential to do good grazing management with multi-paddock grazing so you can ration and control access of livestock to the annuals.

This phenomenon is why most land grant universities advise only establishing perennial grass in the fall and then following up with legumes seeded in late winter or early spring. They also don’t recommend seeding annuals with perennials since the annuals also outcompete the perennial grass.

During the grass-clover cycle, drill in other perennials when legumes begin to wane.

June 2021 Timely Tips – Adaptive Grazing Management

Any quick search on Google or YouTube with the mention of grazing is enough to send you down an rabbit hole that can easily cause confusion and frustration as you try to plan your grazing management for summer pastures. Here are some of the different types of grazing systems you’ll find in the rotational grazing articles and a brief description of each.

I find that most of my farm responds best to the Top Third Grazing method but I use many of these options when they’re required for soil, pasture, and livestock health.

· Prescribed grazing: a designed method to accomplish a goal. It may include multiple strategies

· Rotational grazing; typically 3 to 14 days of grazing followed by 28 or more days of recovery

· Flash grazing; short periods of grazing from hours to 2 days less than 4 times per year

· Creep grazing; allowing young stock to graze ahead of their mothers

· Forward grazing; high nutritional need stock graze first followed by animals with lower nutritional needs

· Strip grazing; providing a new strip of grazing hourly or every few days

· Time limit grazing; grazing an area for a short period

· High density/short-duration grazing; 4,000 pounds per acre to 70,000 pounds per acre. Stocking rates over 70,000 pounds per acre will usually need the stock to be rotated two or more times per day.

· Ultra-high density grazing (mob grazing); 70,000 pounds plus per acre.

· Total grazing (boom or bust) (landscaping); making stock graze everything followed by a long recovery. In high rainfall areas, recovery periods of 90 days or more will be needed.

· Seasonal grazing; grazing when grass is in abundance. I employed this technique on a field allowing a taller residual height over winter and the grass rewarded me with magical production.

· Put and Take grazing; adjusting the number of livestock as pasture production changes (e.g. early-season double stocking)

· Continuous grazing; any benefits of managed grazing decrease substantially when fields are grazed longer than 14 days

· Spot grazing (selective grazing); a sign that livestock preferentially grazed certain plants/areas. This is typically due to stocking density not being high enough.

· Over-grazing; grazing below where most carbohydrates are stored. This results in high utilization but production can be reduced by as much as 2/3rds.

No matter which management style you choose for your particular situation here are some things to remember for success with your grazing management.

Rotate livestock before your most limiting resource is stressed and negatively impacted.
Wait to rotate until the next paddock is at the proper height to graze based on the present plant community

+     4” + cool-season grasses
+     3” bermudagrass, crabgrass, white clover
+     6” johnsongrass
+     8” native grass
Don’t limit yourself or your operation by locking into one form of management
No matter which technique you choose, Always rotate when the paddock is soiled
Does a field need grazing-disturbance or recovery-rest
Graze to keep pastures vegetative and palatable
Rotate fast in spring to control seed production
Top third grazing allows you to slow down rotation when growth slows
Target the pre-boot stage of the plant, when the seed head is moving up the stem
Keep light to desired plant community (key plants), shade out undesirable
Double stock pastures in spring when grass is plentiful
Stockpile reserve paddock 90 days for drought or winter
Target your soil sample results for pH 6.8 for soil function, medium range for phosphorus and potassium. A pH of 6.2 is fine for forage production
Seed or manage legumes for nitrogen (high protein= Nitrogen)
Tools to impact undesirable plants: Strategic grazing, placement of hay, mineral, mobile shade, and water source
Shade becomes important when temperature and humidity are above 80
Stockpile grass on sacrifice paddock and traps near a corral
Combine herds when practical
The number of paddocks needed is 16 permanent per herd divided into 45 or more temporary paddocks but any amount is better than one.
Strive to not allow back grazing longer than 4 days
Back fence to prevent livestock from taking a second bite of desirable plants

What type of grazing management is best for your unique situation?

I’m sure I’ve missed listing some forms of grazing but the main idea to remember is that they all have their place and application. This is where the “adaptive” part comes in. Anything can be accomplished with grazing management. You need a clear goal when choosing your grazing strategy. Different fields can benefit from different grazing techniques. Identify and learn about your plant communities and start rotating!

Wishing you the best, if you have questions, concerns, or rebuttals about anything I’ve presented, feel free to respond to me at gregbrann5@gmail.com. You can find past Timely Tips plus many other resource materials at my website, www.gregbrann.com.

There are many ways to accomplish regenerative grazing.

LOCAL EVENTS

June 25, 26, 2021 South Poll field day Gary and Diane Graves, Trenton, TN      southpoll.com

October 14, 2021 Big Spring Farm Pasture Walk

November 5, 2021, Tennessee Forage and Grassland Council Conference, http://utbfc.utk.edu/

The next timely tips: Transitioning to warm season grass.

Hay Feeding Strategies

Hay Feeding 101, 201, and 301

Here is where Debbie lets me nerd out about hay feeding. In this post, you’ll find tips for hay feeding in fall, winter, and Spring and why, if the conditions are right, I prefer to feed in the fall and stockpile my grass while it’s growing. I’ll also walk you through how to calculate your hay needs for the winter, but a warning is appropriate here, it’s not for the faint of heart! We’ll also delve into the different types of feeding options. So, let’s go.

The place to start when trying to calculate your hay needs is with plenty of numbers, but if you plan to guess or if you know your needs based on previous years, please feel free to scroll down to the different hay feeding techniques.

Bear with me on this because there are lots of numbers. Each time you do a calculation, ask yourself if this sounds reasonable.

– One animal unit (1,000-pound animal) consumes 30 pounds per day

– An acre inch of good grass weighs 300 pounds per acre inch

– Animals waste 50% of standing forage.

– Five sheep equals one animal unit

– Six goats equals one animal unit

Inventory the number of animals or animal units to feed grass or hay. Since I run multispecies, it’s easiest for me to convert everything to animal units. After the calf reaches 300 pounds, count the calf’s needs in addition to the cow’s needs. The default animal demand is 3% of their body weight. It will vary from 2% to over 3%, but there are losses, so I usually just use 3% for easy calculations. It’s just an estimate, anyway.

So, let’s do an example of round numbers for easy math: 10 cows (@ 1,000 pounds) with young calves and 20 ewes (@ 120 pounds), 12 nanny goats (@ 90 pounds), one bull (@ 2,000 pounds), one ram (@ 200 pounds) and one buck (@ 200 pounds).

Animal units

10 AU cattle, 2 AU sheep, and 2 AU goats plus 2 AU for the bull, .2 AU for a ram, and 0.2 AU for the buck. This brings the total animal units to 16.4; now multiply this by 1,000 pounds to get 16,400 pounds times 0.03 consumed per animal unit equals 492 pounds of grass needed per day, but let’s round up to 500 pounds just to be safe.

Inventory pastures and standing grass and estimated grazing days. Add up all the grazable acres of standing grass you have on the farm. An example would be inches across all fields: 4”, 6”, 8”, 10”, 5”, and 7”, equaling a total of 40”. For purposes of example, let’s assume all the fields are the same size, 5 acres per field for a total of 30 acres.

The average weight of dry grass per acre inch in a productive field with thick grass is 300 pounds. So 40” forage x 300 (pounds per acre inch) x 5 acres = 60,000 pounds of dry matter standing, but only 50% of this will be consumed by livestock due to stomping, laying, defecation, and urination on forage. So, really, we can only count on 30,000 pounds of actual dry matter consumed.

Now, to calculate how long this will last, divide by animal demand of 500 pounds of dry matter per day. Meaning the standing pasture will last 60 days. If the pasture didn’t grow anymore, we would be out of the grass in two months. This time of year, with moisture, grass will grow 20- 40 pounds per acre per day through October and will continue slower growth through early December. So, sixty days x 30 pounds per day x 30 acres = 54,000 pounds grown x 50 % loss = 27,000 pounds predicted to grow again divided by animal demand of 500 pounds per day = 54 additional days of grazing for a total of 114 days, so we predict grazing through mid-December.

Hay will be needed through March, so 3.5 months (let’s call it four months). So, 120 days x 500 pounds needed per day = 60,000 pounds of hay needed, but there are losses with hay, too, so let’s add 20% for losses from handling and feeding. That brings your hay needed to purchase to 72,000 pounds. Hay will keep in the barn with very little loss over time, so it is good insurance.

One Location feeding.

If one hay-feeding site is used, choose that site wisely. It should be 300’ or more from drainage ways and other water areas, away from sinks and ditches, and be on a slope of 5% or less. If feeding is done near sensitive areas, it’s potentially an environmental disaster and a contributor to poor water quality and disease. If animals spend their days in mud, their energy needs are increased as much as 2x.

These areas need to be sown in something like bermudagrass or tall fescue to reduce weeds and take advantage of nutrients.

The idea here is to reduce impacts on the pasture, which is understandable but not a good plan for profit. The manure value is $20/1000 lb. roll of hay and the cost of reseeding an acre is less than $50/ac, so it’s ideal to feed hay on your most infertile ground. The manure is worth 10 x more than the cost of reseeding the small area impacted by feeding hay across a pasture.

Supplemental hay feeding square bales on a fence line. Flaking them out will allow all stock to get a bite of high-quality hay.

Fenceline feeders are an improvement on one-location feeding because the tractor doesn’t have to enter the field, creating tracks and compacting it. However, it is still a method of one-site feeding, which has some downfalls.

Although this looks bad, with a recovery of 90 or more days in the growing season, it was much better grass and clover than the previous year. Sometimes, in rainy times, I don’t use a hay ring, reducing the mud.

Accumulated waste should be gathered and ideally covered by a roof until it is spread on the land. If you have a pad, concrete is the easiest to scrape. If using a gravel pad, you should leave a couple of inches of manure on the pad to keep from scraping up gravel and spreading it on fields. Since the cost of spreading usually equals the value of the manure, it isn’t a great value at this point, and we call it waste. Since most of the nitrogen comes from the urine, you’ll lose it to leaching if the manure is left in one place.

Fall feeding:

I prefer to feed hay in the fall when I can grow grass. This allows me to feed much less hay. It is possible to grow as much as five times the grass than hay fed in the fall, but there are many variables to consider.

Decent soil fertility and properly managed grazing heights will grow more grass. Fall hay feeding can dramatically improve fields with weed problems and low fertility. Ideally, allow sacrifice areas substantial recovery time before winter, and you’ll see quick spring green-ups.

The minimum recommended grazing height for cool-season grasses, such as tall fescue, is 4” during the growing season. I don’t like to see it taken below 2” in the winter.

Bale Grazing. There are many different ways to do bale grazing. It’s important to place the bales in the field when the soil is dry or frozen and place the bales strategically to accomplish the desired nutrient distribution. The cows will cycle 80 to 90 percent of the hay back onto the pasture as nutrients; therefore, if you want to increase fertility, you may want to place the rolls as close together as 30’ apart, which is equivalent to 24 tons of hay biomass/ac. If you are looking to maintain fertility, place the rolls approximately 80’ apart, which equals about 3.5 tons of hay/ac.

Ideally, stockpiled grass would be available along with hay, which would be rationed with a temporary wire fence like polywire. You would paddock off an estimated amount of hay needed for 3 days or less. Example: 30 cows weighing 1200 pounds x 0.03 (percent of body wt. consumed per day) x 3 days = 3240 pounds. So, provide them access to 3 rolls. If the available grass is substantial, reduce the quantity of hay accordingly. Good grass is typically about 300 lb/acre inch. However, only approximately 50% is consumed. Example: 8” grass x 300 lb/ac. In. x 0.50 (grazing efficiency) = 1200 lb, so reduce hay feeding by about one roll/day for every acre of grazing when available grass is substantial.

Hay can be placed behind a high hot wire, providing calves or other stock the ability to forward-graze to more or better hay.

The biggest advantage to bale grazing is labor savings over unrolling hay.

Unrolling hay. I like this method best, but to do it right, it’s labor-intensive. It really should be done once or twice a day, unrolling half of the animals’ needs in the morning and the other half in the afternoon to simulate grazing. They need to clean up most of the hay before feeding again. All hay isn’t equal, so don’t make them clean up junk hay.

One big advantage to unrolling hay is that all animals are on a more equal playing field, with everyone having more access to hay. Hay rings can limit access, and animals at the bottom of the pecking order, like young calves and sheep, won’t have equal access to the hay in a ring. Unrolling hay has great strategic manure placement.

Feeding in rings versus not using rings. This may be controversial, but there’s no doubt that although rings will conserve hay, the mud-out is much worse with a ring than without it. My experience is if you have enough stock to clean up the hay in a day or less, the hay waste is minimal, but if the hay is there for multiple days, a ring is going to be your best bet.

Remember, grazing is half the cost of hay. If you feed 3- 1000 lb rolls a day, and hay cost is $40/roll, every day you graze instead of feeding hay will save you $120 since the nutrients (N-P-K) in those three rolls are worth about $60.

Spring Hay Feeding – Don’t stop too early!

I want to encourage everyone to feed hay a little longer in the spring to let the grass get a good start. Spring grass is washy with high water content and some hay fed along with it helps to slow the rate of passage, improving digestibility. Also, allowing the grass to get a good start gives you a buffer of extra grass through the year. Typically, I will feed hay into early April.

Wishing you the best, if you have questions, concerns, or rebuttals about anything I have presented respond to me at gregbrann5@gmail.com. There are many ways to accomplish regenerative grazing.

Frost Seeding Legumes

When it comes to frost seeding, all you need is a good honeycomb freeze (a shown in the above photo) and an electric seeder on a 4-wheeler. This cold snap we’re experiencing is a perfect time for frost seeding. A layer of snow will help you to see your tracks and seed distribution.

There are times when frost seeding might not be necessary. If you maintained thick residual (intact plants 2” or taller) and residue (detached cover, mulch) all the pasture usually needs is recovery time. Also, if you are a top third grazer it’s going to be hard to maintain legumes due to shading them out, so why seed them?

What fields should be seeded? Fields that have some exposed soil are the best candidates for frost seeding. If you plan on feeding hay in those pastures this winter, just wait until March to reduce excess trampling. Unrolling hay can be beneficial after seeding as long as it doesn’t cause serious mud outs.

Frost seeding round seeds like legumes and brassicas works well with this treatment. Their shape and weight pull them into the ground for good contact and better germination. I typically add 5 pounds of grass seed with the legumes and brassicas in order to thicken the stand.

What should you frost seed? Consider your existing fertility when deciding which species to seed. The standard recommendation is “2,4,8 let’s renovate” coined by the late Dr. Joe Burns, University of TN Forage Specialist. That translates to 2 pounds of white clover, 4 pounds of red clover, and 8 pounds of annual lespedeza. Ideally, your soil should have a pH of 6.2 or higher at seeding and have a moderate to high level of Phosphorus and Potassium.

Matching seeds with conditions will save time and money so it’s important to understand what each type of plant needs in order to thrive.

All white clovers, with the exception of the lower growing shouldn’t be sown unless fertility is high.

When it comes to deciding what varieties to plant, I like to look at variety trials and compare them to see what will work best in each situation. Typically, you won’t find big differences between varieties but how you manage your grazing heights and recovery times have the greatest influence on production and longevity.

White Clover: The larger leaf and upright habit of the Ladino white clovers make them good forage types. Although Dutch types tend towards a more prostrate plant, these long-lived varieties tend to produce a lower yield. They are also better adapted to lower fertility then other white clovers. Intermediate types like Patriot, Durana, and Resolute fall somewhere in between Dutch and Ladino types and are more aggressive.

A bermudagrass/legume mix makes a good stand when seeded into the bermudagrass in the fall, about 20 days prior to the predicted killing frost.

Red clover, a biennial typically lasting two winters can produce an extra year of production when sown in February or drilled in March. Certified Red Clover seed can last three winters and allowing some seed set in the summer will increase the longevity of the stand by reseeding. Some varieties I seed are: Certified Kenland, Cinnamon, or 401RC.

Annual lespedeza is very well adapted to low fertility, low producing, and shady fields. If given ample recovery time in early September, this annual will reseed. Kobe is preferred for pastures and Korean for hay but the two are typically found in a mix. Marion is one well known variety that tends to reseed better than other varieties. The price of lespedeza varies widely from year to year so I’ll usually seed less per acre or won’t seed it at all if it’s higher than $1.50 per pound.

Brassicas are annuals and good indicator plants. They perform best where organic matter and soil fertility is good. Yellowing and poor performance are telltale signs of poor soil fertility. Brassicas are often sown in the fall but a spring seeding can work very well with good survival through next spring.

Forage radishes are best known for their long tap root and for reducing the effects of compaction. Both tap and fibrous roots help to reduce compaction which usually occurs at three to five inches. Longer recovery periods increase roots and decrease compaction. Tillage exacerbates compaction issues.

Forage radishes and turnips are best seeded at less than 2 lbs/ac. I typically seed one pound per acre

Spring pugging (hoof imprints in the field) benefits from a seeding of a grass/legume mixture. KY 31 contains endophytes and reduces animal performance but it’s a tough grass that holds up better to traffic and short grazing.

For years, I have seeded improved grasses along with legumes and brassicas on my hay feeding areas but I have concluded that especially where hay rolls have been set across the fields, KY 31 is the best choice. I have found that no matter what grass is seeded, the livestock graze the tender new seedlings more than well-established grasses and KY 31 can hold up better.

Orchardgrass and Persister bromegrass are tolerant of shading and do well in mixes. A good stand of annual ryegrass is almost guaranteed but can be very competitive with legumes and perennial grasses. I don’t recommend adding more than 1 lb per acre. I usually recommend adding spring oats at a rate of less than 20 lb/ac with the legumes.

If seeding in March, it’s best to use a no-till drill or light tillage to get seed soil contact. A cultipacker behind the seeding is ideal. Another option is to wait till May and seed a warm season annual like Sudangrass on feeding areas.

All that said, if cost is an issue, seed lower rates, half rates work well if you have good seeding conditions. I do not like to spend more than $35/acre on seed.

Cost effectiveness: The clover should produce fifty or more pounds of Nitrogen/ac. At $0.40/lb of N an annual return of $20 is typical and if your stand lasts three years, that’s $60/ac.

Why Should you invest in Frost Seeding?

Animal gains per acre should increase easily by 0.2 lb/day or $45/ cow/calf per year. Milk production, body condition. and conception rates should also improve. So, a conservative return is $65 per acre/yr plus increased conception rates and improved soil health.

Management of legume seeding

It’s best to not fertilize with nitrogen the same season that legumes are seeded as it stimulates grass growth, thereby shading out the legumes. If phosphorus is low, it’s best to use something like a low N 11-52-0 (MAP). Keeping light to the newly seeded legumes will be important for survival rates. Managed grazing and/or clipping will endure a good stand.

Wishing you the best, if you have questions, concerns or rebuttals about anything I have presented, feel free to respond to me at gregbrann5@gmail.com. There are many ways to accomplish regenerative grazing.

EVENTS

October 14, 2021 Big Spring Farm Pasture Walk

May 6-8, 2021 Greg Judy Grazing School – SOLD OUT

November 5, 2021, TNFG Conference, http://utbfc.utk.edu/

2020 Pasture Walk at Big Springs Farm

This year’s pasture walk will be held on October 16 at 10 AM central time. Every pasture walk, for the past 21 years, has been a great success because every event has been energized by the people who attend, discuss, question, and brainstorm. We expect this year’s pasture walk to be a time to convene with other farmers, ranchers, and advisers to study the effects of the pandemic on the business of farming. We’ll be discussing forage, soil, water, and animal management.

By popular demand, Brayden Apple, with river cottage farm will cater the event again, so come hungry. Brayden will cook up our grass-finished, farm-raised meat.

Just click the button below to send an RSVP and I’ll respond with a confirmation as soon as possible.

Pasture-walk-2020-1

Click Here to RSVP for the Pasture Walk

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