Building Soil With "Wasted" Grass

7/29/2019 Building Soil With "Wasted" Grass

1/4

by Greg Judy

Last year by concentrating on com-bining our cow herds into one largeherd, we built a very nice recovery periodinto our Holistic Planned Grazing. Nowwe are starting to see the huge dividendsfrom this management decision. We arepresently on a 150-day recovery period

from the previous grazing.

I will admit that I had nightmaresabout several issues before taking theplunge, though, such as:

What about those awful seedheads?

How will I ever get the cows to eat therank over mature forage?

Wont pinkeye problems be rampantwith all those tall rank plants with seed-heads?

What about maintaining good animalperformance on rank over mature forage?

Our actual grazing results have beenan eye-opening experience but be-fore I discuss the resolution of eachnightmare listed above, let me introduceour herd. It is made up of June and fallcalvings of South Poll owned cows. TheSouth Poll is a red-hided animal devel-

oped by Teddy Gentry of Fort Payne,

Alabama. It is very hardy on grass-onlygrazing systems. These cows have donenothing but excel in the Missouri heatand humidity, plus they handle our win-ters very well. They are a four-way crossconsisting of Red Angus, Senepol, Bar-zona and Hereford. They are very slick-hided, which makes them excel in heat,

but they grow a nice winter hair coat forour colder season.

Our goal is to get everything calvingin June because then we can get our cowsin a body condition score of 6.5 by thetime they calve. This is critical for a quick,high-percentage breed-back after calv-

ing. Dick Diven has done a great deal ofresearch showing the importance of cowscalving with a 6.5 body condition score

a tremendous breed-back is the result.In central Missouri it is tough to put a lotof weight on a pregnant cow coming outof winter with April grass. The grass inthis time period is so high in protein, thecows have a hard time keeping on weight,let aloneputtingit on. The May grass is adifferent story: the weight just piles on!

Now, lets get back to my nightmares.

Since switching to Holistic High Density

Planned Grazing several years ago, ourrest periods have tripled over our previ-ous grazing system. By moving the mobone to two times per day, depending onthe growing season and moisture condi-tions, we are always keeping the cows infreshly recovered pasture strips. We are100 percent focused on animal perfor-

mance mode, getting as much qualitygrass through our cows daily as possible.

Building Soil With

Wasted Grass

A mob of South Poll cattle at 100,000 pounds per acre eating cockleburs.

Reprinted from May2009 Vol. 40, No. 5


2/4

Our cows do eat some of the seed heads,

but most of them get trampled as thecows are ripping off the long, succulentleaves down in the dense canopy.

As far as getting them to eat rank for-age, we do not have to force our cows.Our recovered pastures now have so manydifferent plant species growing, there is al-

ways something tender and growing downin the mature grass sward. As the cowsseek out these tender palatable plants,they trample the ranker forage on theground. The pinkeye issue has not been aconcern at all this year we have not hada single case of pinkeye in the entire mob.This is probably the most amazing statis-tic for me. We always in the past have had

some pinkeye, at least in a few calves.I believe the biggest reason we have

not had any pinkeye this year is be-cause we have been focusing more onhigh animal performance, thanks to Ian

Mitchell-Innes constant comments onthe importance of focusing on this issue.We watch at 60 days before calving upuntil the time we take out our bulls afterour cows are bred. Mitchell-Innes hasconvinced me that any health issue that

shows up in an animal is a symptom ofstress that the animal was subjected to60 days or more prior to the event. Afterexperiencing zero health problem issuesin our herd, I am sold on the importanceof animal performance. Keep in mind

that 70 percent of the unborn calf isdeveloped inside the cow in the last 60days which trumps the importance

of animal performance during this timeperiod. This means that if a calf getsscours, pinkeye, or any health issue, itis probably because you shorted thecow on quality forage during that timeperiod. If a cow does not get everythingshe needs everyday, how can she pass onthe priceless antibodies in her milk toher calf? She cannot, so the calf may have

health issues.

With the help of free solar energy anda long recovery period, we are buildingsoil like never before. Our pastures havetons of litter trampled on and into themdaily with the mob movement. It stillamazes me to see the amount of foragethey can trample in 12 hours. We hada farm tour in June on our farms and

hosted about 85 Midwestern cattlemen.One farm we toured that afternoon had

not been grazed since March. When I

told the group that this farm had neverbeen limed or fertilized in the last 75years, I saw looks of doubt appear onsome of their faces.

The history of this 160-acre farm wasthat it had been continuously grazed andhayed. The whole farm had 12 cows anda bull on it right before I leased it. Youcould hit a golf ball at any point on the

farm and have no problem finding it. Alot of the hills were covered with moss,broomsedge and cedars. We cut the ce-dars and started increasing our animaldensity with long recovery periods. Thecomment I heard from several of ourtour group attendees was, This grass istoo good to graze you should be cut-ting it for hay! I almost choked. I quick-

ly recovered, though, and proceeded totell them that this farm would never seea baler on it as long as I was alive!

I purposely took the tour group outinto the middle of the field so that theycould see first hand how thick, diverse

and lush the forage was. Several people

were sweating and gasping for breathwhen I finally stopped in the middle ofthe field. The grass/legume pasture wasso thick that people were having troublewalking through it, myself included! Thisfarm had seen two years of high-densitygrazing with recovery periods that al-lowed the plants to fully mature be-

fore being grazed again. No seeding was

done, yet there were all sorts of grasses

and legumes growing profusely.There was one grass variety that

formed a clump of rich, dark-greenblades that no one in the group had everseen before, including me! This farm stillhad 21 days before it would see our mob,which would give it 125 days since it wasgrazed last. Several people in the tourgroup asked me, Arent the cattle going

to waste a lot of this forage if you try andgraze it first?

First I responded that nothing inhigh-density grazing is wasted if it istrampled on the ground by ruminatinganimals. We are feeding our soil mi-crobes, earthworms, laying down groundsurface litter, building soil, increasing or-ganic matter, preventing erosion, hold-

ing water where it falls, and providingbird nesting habitat. Do any of thosethings sound like waste to you?

I bent down on my knees in front ofthe group, pulled back the 2-foot-tallforest of grass, and exposed the ground

surface. All you could see was a chopped-

up layer of dead plants covering the soil.One fellow took out his pocketknife andcut a wedge out of the moist soil surface.There were two worms in the tiny 4-inchwedge of soil. A lot of people walked outof that field still in disbelief as to whatthey had seen. No fertilizer and no in-puts other than good management, with

high density and long recovery periodsbetween grazing.

South Poll steers finishing on previously mob-grazed paddock.



3/4

On July 4, we walked the mob twomiles down public roads to this farm. Icould not tell any difference visually inthe quality of the grass since June 13,

except that the sward was taller, thicker,with much more mass. The cattle weregrazed on 12-hour moves at 75,000 to

150,000 pounds per acre depending onthe slope and terrain.

I could not believe what was hap-pening with the herd. They were doingexactly what I hoped they would do.They were eating the very best, and inthe process they were trampling about70 percent of the grass. Man, were theywasting forage and I was so proud

of them! Good job, cows.

The cows were all fat and happy, andthe field looked like we had taken an as-phalt roller to it. You could count the fewlucky weeds on one hand that survivedgetting knocked over.

This was not a half-million poundsstocking density 75,000 pounds waswhat we were using where the grass

was the thickest. They still trampled allthe grass on the ground, covered with a

slurry of manure. We conducted anotherfarm tour two weeks after giving thisarea the mob treatment. The whole fieldlooked like it had been covered with dry

grass/legume hay. You could reach downand pull up the dead, decaying grasslayer, and the ground was just perfect

underneath the trampled sward. Therewere visual sightings of earthworms ev-erywhere feeding on the manure slurryand trampled dead grass. The legumeswere exploding up through the wasteddead forage with only two weeks rest.

Strong new plants with multiple leaveswere growing everywhere you looked. Thetour group could not believe that I had

removed the cows from each daily strip

with so much quality forage trampledon the ground. Most of their commentswere, Heck, I would have left those cowson those daily strips an extra day andmade them clean it up better, rather thanletting it go to waste on the ground.

There is that waste word again de-scribing grass trampled on the ground.

Graziers have a real hang-up seeinglots of grass trampled on the ground, but

weve learned to value it. This is our no-cost fertilizer program for our pasturesthat allows us to grow more forage eachyear than the previous year. Ive never

seen a pasture grow back any faster thanthat one did, where we had let the cowswaste the grass. After four weeks of

rest, we went back to the same paddockwith a video camera to shoot some filmof the area.

The grass was 12 inches high with clo-vers evenly dispersed in the canopy. Theindividual leaves of the plants were thedarkest, lushest green I had ever seen. Thethick litter was neatly placed between theplants, holding in moisture and feedingthe soil microbes. I bent down and pulled

back the dead, moist 2-inch layer of litteron the ground. Immediately I noticedearthworms, centipedes, big black bee-tles, grubs, monster ant-looking thingswith wings, caterpillars, several differentspecies of hard-shelled worms, and muchmore wildlife than I can describe.

There were earthworm castings ev-

erywhere on the surface of the ground,resembling a worm bed farm. It was

Custom-grazed mob of bred cows grazing at 350,000 pounds per acre.



4/4

one of the most beautiful sights I have

ever seen in my life. This was in themiddle of August, and you normallydo not see earthworms on the surfaceof the ground in Missouri during thistime period. The soil surface had holesof all different diameters going downinto the soil everywhere. It looked like afreeway of bugs had been using this areafor some time. It did not matter where

I walked in the huge field, there was thesame wildlife activity taking place on thesoil surface.

I cut a wedge of soil out of the groundsurface with my pocket knife and heldit to my nose. It had a very rich, earthysmell that went on forever! I literallycould have spent the whole evening onthat one field just walking around pull-ing back the blanket of dead, moist litterand watching the magnificent soil-build-ers work what a pleasure it was. Folks,

we dont have another grazing planningsystem on the face of the earth that canbuild so much soil with no purchasedinputs. With prices of all farm purchasedinputs skyrocketing out of control, itsure is a nice position to be in, havingall this free forage grown with wastedgrass. It really gives you a feeling of be-ing in control of your financial grazingfuture.

Since switching to Holistic High Den-

sity Planned Grazing, we have reducedour workload by two-thirds. We haveincreased our recovery periods by 300percent and increased our animal im-pact by 300 percent. We actually took atwo-week vacation this year out to Utahduring the spring rush of grass. Ourcattle did fine with our hired part-timehigh school boy managing our operation

while we were gone.We came back so rejuvenated and

fresh that we started looking at thingsdifferently as well. We decided to help our17-year-old hired hand get started in theownership of cattle and let him run hiscows with ours. We do not want him to

feel like an employee, but a partner in ourbusiness. He is so excited about owninghis own cattle, he can hardly contain him-self! This young man is very eager to learneverything he can about Holistic Grazing

practices and we are more than happyto have someone who wants to learn sus-tainable grazing practices that will helpthem in building their future, as well. It is

a wonderful feeling to have someone thatwe can trust to manage our operation.You cannot put a price on peace of mind,the freedom from worrying about thingswhile you are gone from your operation.

Thanks to Holistic Management our

daily lives just keep getting better andmore enjoyable each day!

Greg Judy is the author ofNo-Risk Ranchingand Comeback Farms, both available from theAcres U.S.A. bookstore.


Acres U.S.A. is the national journal ofsustainable agriculture, standing virtuallyalone with a real track record over 35years of continuous publication. Eashissue is packed full of information eco-consultants regularly charge top dollarfor. Youll be kept up-to-date on all of

the news that affects agriculture regu-lations, discoveries, research updates,organic certification issues, and more.

To subscribe, call

1-800-355-5313(toll-free in the U.S. & Canada)512-892-4400 / fax 512-892-4448

P.O. Box 91299 / Austin, TX 78709

[email protected]

Or subscribe online at:www.acresusa.com

Documents

Building Soil With "Wasted" Grass