The drought that hit much of the state this summer added new wrinkles in forage and water management for many livestock producers.
Some areas have received timely rains to keep forages growing, while others have been feeding hay and only recently received rain to start brown, dormant pastures growing again.
Whatever your situation, don’t let livestock overgraze pastures before winter dormancy occurs.
Temptation. Some may think leaving livestock on the pastures to harvest all the green grass that is there will decrease the amount of hay necessary to get through the winter.
However, repeatedly grazing grass plants to a very short height before winter dormancy may greatly reduce production in the spring and require more total hay to be fed since spring growth will be much slower.
Critical time. Fall growth is a critical time in a perennial grass plant’s production because it is the beginning of growth stages of next year’s plants.
The crown of the plant and portions of the roots remain active throughout the winter, using carbohydrates that were stored during the last days before dormancy.
At grazing meetings, we frequently talk about rest periods for forage plants after livestock or machinery defoliate the plants. This is to allow plants time to regrow leaf material and recharge or store carbohydrates (plant food) in the roots.
Plants that are heavily defoliated regrow from root reserves until the plant regrows adequate leaf surface to gather sunlight again.
Then photosynthesis takes over to provide needed carbohydrates for growth, and any additional production that occurs is stored in the roots and crown of the plant for future use.
Root storage. Remember though, no storage occurs in the roots until enough leaf growth takes place to provide energy for the new top growth.
This process, or portions of it, is repeated several times during the growing season as long as the plants are permitted enough time for the whole process to take place.
Grazing too soon never lets the roots fill up.
When cold weather closely follows grazing rotations, food reserves will not be replenished before dormancy begins in some paddocks.
If plants are “fully charged” before defoliation, they should make it through winter and begin growth quickly in the spring as soon as temperatures warm.
Weakened. However, if plants have been weakened from continuous grazing in the summer or repeatedly overgrazed this fall, roots that never had a chance to “fill up” will produce a much slower growing plant in the spring.
So, what can we do to eliminate or reduce the weakened plant and empty root reserve scenario?
Correctly rotating pastures during the growing season is the best way, but if you haven’t done too good of a job with that this summer, you may try one of these options: