 Why is this because we now don't have to pay for the machinery or the harvest cost to get that forage? We can actually make the cow go out there and do her own work to get her own diet instead of us having to feed her So I like to start off with this quote. It's one of my favorites To kind of talk about like integrated production and things like that the beef cow is a harvester of forage So when we think about cattle being ruminants They have a really good opportunity to be able to take some of these really low quality feeds and things like that Like Warren was talking about some of that like straw and corn residues stuff that's really low quality We're not going to use it for anything else and they can turn it into a really high quality nutrient products in the form of beef So I think it's our job as producers educators and consultants in the industry To do what we can to kind of capitalize on this you know, what can we do to Feed more of those byproducts feed more of those things that we're not going to use for other Production and things like that so kind of being innovative when you're dealing with production So this idea about making the cow do the work kind of thing about grazing management It's all about balancing what the cow needs and what you have available for forage So we know that cow nutrient requirements are going to change throughout the year We also know that our forage availability and quality is also changing throughout the year So it's kind of a constant balance of Adding those two things up So this is kind of complicated I'm sure a lot of you guys have kind of seen this or thought about it before But this is just a graph showing how nutrient requirements of a cow changes throughout the year So it goes up very high after calving during peak lactation Which is about six weeks after calving. That's when she's milking That's when she's going to have her highest nutrient requirements And then you can see this really steep drop-off later in the year That's at weaning time when we've cut off that lactation So her nutrient requirements are going to be the very lowest After you wean that calf. So for spring calving cows, that's going to be fall Kind of when the the grass is going dormant and when people start harvesting and things like that, so If you kind of think about opportunities That are low quality feeds they can kind of fit into her low nutrient requirements such as corn residue and things like that and Then this is just kind of a typical graph graph of some pasture grasses This is kind of their life cycle and their quality is going to be when they're growing So if you think kind of in the springtime our pastures And forages are going to be going up in their production and their quality And that kind of coincides when we have cattle at their peak nutrient requirements When they're lactating and that kind of drops off as it as it goes dormant So kind of the rule of thumb with grazing forages is that the the more mature the forages the lower the quality is So if you kind of think about color as that grass turns brown, it's going to be lower in quality So I'm going to just kind of briefly go over some of these type of strategies I'm going to talk about both grazing in cropland and grazing grassland because I think these are just Especially in this area of the world we kind of have limited access to pasture. I mean a lot of our pastures are more fragmented further apart, maybe not such big pieces in one area and then Yeah, to kind of just get you guys thinking about some potential strategies that you could employ So moving into grazing cropland Just show a hands in here is there a lot of people who do graze cropland or are involved in that awesome So I kind of just want to talk about some of the economics this was a survey done in 2019 Where they kind of looked at from the crop sector and the livestock sector how valuable grazing residue was to those industries And I just pulled North Dakota and South Dakota out of that because that's where we are But if you look at the top of the graph in our crop sector Only about 20% of the corn residue that we produce in these states is actually grazed And when you combine that with our rental rates in both the states It contributes a lot of value to the crop industry in terms of rental rates Almost three million in North Dakota and almost 13 million in South Dakota And then when you look at the livestock sector Again, we have about 20% of the cows in these states are actually grazing crop residue When you add a rental rate to that We come to about six million dollars worth of feed value to North Dakota and 17 million dollars of feed value to South Dakota So this is kind of just demonstrating that grazing crop residue is really valuable for both sides of the equation We get rental rates on the crop side and we get cheap feed for the livestock side And I know That 20% is kind of low and I just want to say that I do know That some of the problems is cows are not always close to the cropland As well as in the Dakotas. We typically have a shorter timeframe between when those crops are harvested But and when the when the snowpack comes in so with some snow cattle can still easily graze residue But it's more when you get that hard pack or any ice or things like that. They're pretty much done But some other reasons that people don't graze cropland 20% of people thought in this survey thought that grazing would decrease subsequent yield And so for example in a corn soybean rotation if you're grazing corn residue a lot of people think that their soybean yields could be decreased And along with that they kind of think that it that could cause some issues with soil compaction They think it can interfere with their farming practices So maybe they have cattle on there when they want to be in the fields working it or things like that and some other genuine concerns is cropland typically lacks livestock water sources And fencing of facilities. So that's kind of like added labor for the cattle producer But I want to address Kind of these two common reasons so soil compaction and farming practices University of Nebraska put together a study to kind of talk about This this soil compaction concern and kind of get an answer once and for all how it really affects soil compaction So what they did This may be kind of hard for you guys to see But essentially what they tried to do Which create the worst-case scenario for grazing how bad can we graze a field and see how badly it affects soil compaction and things like that So what they did on this cornfield they had areas that they left completely ungrazed They had some that were grazed at what we would consider normal And then we had like our triple extreme situation We waited until the spring actually and then waited until it rained and the field got muddy Then we kicked cattle out on the field extremely high stocking density just to see what would happen and For the record I'm not recommending this extreme grazing, but we just wanted to see what would happen to the soil. So You can see at the bottom about 90 percent cover on the ungrazed 30 percent cover on the normal and only about 20 percent cover was left on the high-grace field So I hope you guys can just visually see the drastic change in these pictures Looking at the effects on soil Penetration resistance, that's like how hard it is to like push into the soil and bulk density. That's kind of like how much Space is in the in the kind of like the soil structure um So we have our non-graze and yellow and are really high-grazed in blue So you can see that it definitely did increase Penetration resistance and bulk density By including grazing, but what I want to point out at the top of this graph We have this red line And that is what we would consider our negative effects threshold So as long as we're below that we are not Expected to cause problems to plant growth If you get above that then there can be concerns about the roots being able to push through the soil and things like that But even in our really high extreme grazing It's well below the threshold. So not saying it didn't increase soil compaction But it's definitely well below where we would consider negative effects And now looking at surface roughness, I think you guys can tell us from the picture too That the trampoline and cattle walking it definitely did increase the surface roughness Pretty drastically they actually had to slow down planting and increase down pressure when they planted their soybeans But then we actually saw an increase in soybean yield By four bushels per acre from the non-graze to the extreme grazing situation And you might be sitting thinking well four bushels an acre whatever But at today's soybean prices say like $12 a bushel That's an added like $50 an acre an increased yield So I'm not saying that that's a good strategy, but it is something to think about So kind of take home messages from that soil compaction was well below negative thresholds They did have to slow down their planting But that was kind of offset by an increase in soybean yield and the thought there is that cattle are pushing more of that plant material into the ground So they're actually increasing soil organic matter And feeding the soil microbes which then is increasing nutrient cycling which increases nutrient availability for that soybean plant in the next year And again the extreme grazing is not recommended but we can what we can conclude from this study is That normal grazing is totally okay for soil and any of those negative effects. We saw were Back to normal after the soybean plant was harvested. So I'm going to talk a little bit about grazing corn residue I'm assuming a lot of you guys do graze corn residue or at least familiar with it We know it's an economical winter feed source We know it can help extend the grazing season Which means we're making the cow go out and do the grazing We're not feeding her harvested hay And we know that both crop and livestock producers benefit from cheap feed and from rental rates There are some problems with grazing corn residue Each of the plant parts is different in quality and quantity The main thing that cattle are going to eat is the husk and the leaf They're not going to eat the stock. They're not going to eat the cob and in today's world. We don't really have that much minimal grain left So that's really not a big diet component. They might eat a little bit of it But primarily it's about husk and leaf. Those are the greatest in energy and crude protein The problem is that corn residue is also susceptible to weather So how many of you guys in the dakotas have driven by a fence line and seen all the the the corn leaves and the husk blown into it That is unfortunately not in the field anymore, which means the cattle don't have access to those nutrients We also know that snow cover, especially ice pack, can actually physically prevent the cattle from grazing corn residue And we also know that precipitation can be a problem. So if you're grazing in muddy conditions That can kind of affect the soil as we saw in that last study And mud is a whole different conversation in terms of calf health and performance and things like that so things to think about The other problem with grazing corn residue is that our cow nutrient requirements are typically increasing throughout the grazing season But our nutrient availability in those fields is decreasing as weather loss and things like that occur So again, if you think back to that graph of the cow nutrient requirements They're going to be increasing as she advances in gestation talk about spring cows here So you may have to start supplementing and things like that later in the season as she gets closer to calf So some of my recommendations Um is to begin grazing shortly after harvest because we have a shorter window In the Dakotas before the snow comes Even if the ground's not frozen, I say get out there and graze those nutrients while you have access to it And wall cow nutrient requirements are really low um Because mature cows can actually easily gain condition on corn residue um Especially after you cut off that lactation Younger cows can kind of struggle on corn residue because they're so growing So they have higher nutrient requirements. Um, so I say with young cows Maybe it's a good idea to move them to fresh cornfields faster Um, so that they can get more of that high quality husk and leaf out of the field And again husk and leaf are what they're going to eat So pay attention to availability of husk on the field if there's a low amount of husk on the field That is low diet quality for those cows Um, so now moving in to talk about cover crops Um, I'm sure you guys have all heard the spiels about cover crops and soil health Um, I'm not here to fight that battle, but we knew we do know that benefits soil health. Okay I'll talk a little bit about that um, and we also know, um That cover crops can actually grow when our pastures are dormant Um, so that gives us an opportunity to have higher quality grazing for those cattle When our pastures and other things are actually dormant And we also know that some cover crops, um, can give us more options So maybe we have a chance to graze them And then we actually can mechanically harvest them later for silage or hay or things like that That's going to increase some of your stored forages And potential income so Um, just kind of want to highlight some of the good for soil things about cover crops Um, the First principle of soil health is soil cover. Um, so we want to keep that soil covered Um with plant residue that's going to reduce erosion and then that plant material is actually going to help capture some of that moisture Um, which is going to help, um, increase soil moisture, which helps with our spring green up and later crops and things like that So, um, the other thing is you don't want to graze if you're grazing corn residue You don't want to graze too much that you have a lot of bare ground Because that can actually have the opposite effect on the cover Uh, the second principle of soil health is limited disturbance. Um, so I'm not going to fight the no-till battle or the tail battle here Um, but it is a good thing to minimize physical and chemical disturbance on your soil Because we want to maintain that structure And maintain the microbial biology in the soil. So, um, the great thing about cover crops is they can actually be Drilled into existing crops or flown over, things like that. There's a lot of options The third principle is keeping a living root in the soil for as long as possible Um, the root is actually going to be feeding the the soil microbes and things like that Um, and it actually increases water filtration So the roots actually act like almost like little slides for the water to go down into the soil That's what we want. Okay And then the other great thing is that living plants Offer much higher nutrition to cattle Rather than dormant ones. So I don't know if you guys can really see this picture This was at an agronomy conference this summer This kind of just showing the the length of the roots In multiple cover crops this one over here on the left. Um, it's actually pseudan grass. You can see how Pretty crazy those roots are um, then we have oats turnips peas I can't read that sunflower and buckwheat or something like that. So, um, but really this is just trying to show off the root structures. So The fourth principle is diversity. You can kind of interpret this how you want But in general the more diverse your ecosystem is the more resilient to this So if you think about a cover crop with multiple species, maybe some are more drought tolerant Some can grow more with less rain things like that Um, that way if you have variable growing conditions, maybe You still have some of those species in your cover crop that are going to come up and and be useful Um, and then I always have to plug the multi species grazing um A lot of people have been having a lot of success with um grazing small ruminants, um or Chickens or pigs things like that. Um, in addition to their main paddle crop And then the other the fifth principle of soil health is integrating livestock. So, um Not only does grazing um Living plants give a higher plan of nutrition to cattle Um, but cattle are going to help increase that microbial activity and nutrient cycling on those fields Um through their waste and trampoline um So integrating livestock is a really good thing for crop land In general cover crop options are endless So you can kind of think about what works best for you and don't be afraid to start small You know if if there's like an 80 that's planted to something you want to experiment and see how it goes um Don't don't be afraid to just kind of dip your toes in and see how it goes The other thing is assess the cat assess the cash crop situation So if you're in a corn soybean rotation, that crop's only growing for half the year. Um, so think about ways to Keep a living root opposite of your cash cash crop Um, and then assess your cow nutrition requirements So think about when you're feeding a lot of those harvested forages Other opportunities, you know, even a couple weeks or a month That you could replace harvested store it harvested forage Um with a cover crop or something like that to make your cattle do the work to graze um And then specifically within cover crops annual forages are a pretty good option um because you have the opportunity to graze them plus hay them and sile them um Terminate them for a cash crop or stockpile it which means let it go dormant And you can actually graze it in the winter also um So with annual foraging you kind of have um some options you can plant them after cash crops um You can graze them in the spring before your passion is really green up. You can graze them in the fall. Um There's a lot of different pathways kind of talked about this already. Um Yeah, you can chop them for silage after you graze them you can cut them for hay um You can stockpile them. This is kind of what i'm talking about um, there's been a lot of producers that had success with just letting it mature in their field and again that kind depends on the cash crop situation um But annual forages can hold up pretty well in the snow in the winter um And people have had a lot of success with grazing an annual forage like sudan grass or something like that I'm just letting it mature and grazing it in the winter um, so again many options exist. Um, so think about things that will work best for you um, and again, we talked about this plant maturity concept So as the plant matures its quality is going to decline Um, but its tonnage is going to increase So think about what you need um for to be able to meet your cattle nutrition requirements Um, and that's going to tell you when you should graze it or when you should harvest it The other thing about annual forages, um, is tetanine and nitrate toxicity Um, sure you guys have all heard that before. Um, so potentially, um You should be testing for nitrate analysis in annual forages Especially in drought situations that can make it worse um But feeding a high magnesium supplement to those cattle and waiting until the forage is at least six inches tall Those are going to help combat some of those issues Um, so moving away from crop land, we're going to talk about some grassland ideas here um And I know that a lot of grassland around here is kind of fragmented in and pieces um These are some options that can be really successful even on a small scale Um, so just kind of think about how these options could fit in with what you're doing Um, one of the first things I like to bring up is targeted species grazing um So cool season grasses are the first ones to kind of green up in the spring um But invasive cool season grasses, um, which I'm going to talk a little bit more about Um, they're actually not as good for us. They're not as nutrient dense They're not going to give you as much tonnage and actually decrease your adaptability on these fragmented grasslands So, um, if we can target graze some of those cool season grasses while they're green while they're good Um before they kind of mature and lose their nutrients um That can help make way for more desirable species and also help um Give us a boost um in our cattle diets. So Again, I want to show this graph. Um I'm on the range side. So this is like second nature to me, but for those of you who haven't seen this graph before um This blue line kind of depicts the cool season grasses and how their growth curve goes um, so cool season grasses like cool temperatures and moisture Um, so they're the first things to green up start growing in the spring But then they're going to drop off and kind of mature when it gets hot in the middle of summer Um, and then they might have a bump again in the fall. You know, we see some of those cooler temps and rainfall in the fall Um, that can kind of green up those cool season grasses again Then this yellow line is our warm season grasses. Um So they like more of the hotter temperatures Um, so they're going to start start growing kind of like mid-summer Usually in this area kind of like july 1 is a good time that like we really see those cool seasons start to mature We start to see a lot of growth from warm seasons But this is going to change depending on weather conditions every year. So Um, so what do I mean by an invasive cool season grass? Things like smooth brome grass, kentucky bluegrass, crescent wheat grass and sheet grass Those are all invasive annual grasses That are not not as good In terms of tonnage and quality when we compare them to our native grasses. So um basically This is a picture of cheat grass Um, and you can see how it's like kind of green and lush like cattle cattle will eat that And it's high quality while it's great The problem is is that it turns brown and matures so quickly Um, and when it turns it's going to be really low quality. How to learn going to eat it Especially after it seeds out. They don't want that I I wouldn't want to eat that either But that's kind of this concept that as the grasses mature their quality really drops off. So um native grasses Actually helped maintain a higher nutrient value for much longer even after they go dormant They do decline in quality, but they're going to have a much higher quality than those invasive grasses Um, so some of our native cool season grasses these ones are also going to green up first in the spring Um, but western wheat grass is really great. Um needle grass and prairie dune grass um And then some of our native warm season grasses that are really great indian grass switch grass Prairie sand reed and big and little blue stems. So basically what i'm trying to say If we can target species Grays some of these invasive grasses While they're green We can kind of go in and hit them hard in the spring It's going to knock them back and let some of these native species come up, especially our warm seasons And what's the benefit of doing that? These are much higher quality They hang on to their quality longer And they're more beneficial as a dormant grass Especially in hay and things like that if you hay any of your grassland These are the desirable species Not that the invasives don't have a benefit because they do while they're green This whole concept is that once they mature they're kind of done for So I kind of wanted to demonstrate the difference in tonnage also We know that our invasive species are only going to give us about 100 pounds per acre per inch of leaf growth Versus our natives are going to give us closer to 150 to 200 in our cool seasons and almost up to 250 In our native warm seasons. So what does that mean? You get more grazing out of those species as well as them being higher quality So again, if we can graze our invasive species our invasive species while they're while they're green and they're growing um, that's going to give a Give a lot more room for our native species to come in especially our warm seasons um So so the idea is graze your cool seasons while they're growing and then get off of the pasture if you can to let some of those natives come in Um, so now I'm going to talk about some rotational grazing. Who's heard of rotational grazing? What do you think of when you hear rotational grazing? polywire moving cattle twice a day Stuff like that. Yeah That is the extreme scenario. Okay, you guys can do rotational grazing. You do not have to be that intense. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you some easy ways It's all about managing the recovery times and the grazing times in that pasture. So What is recovery time? That's when you're not grazing it. That's when the grass can Come back and grow again and get bigger So if you think about Certain species will have different different growth curves, right? So our invasive cool seasons They're going to grow a lot early in the season And then they're really going to drop off. So Um, if you're grazing them really hard while they're actively growing You're going to prevent them from getting into their reproductive phase and things like that. Okay um And then depending on how you rotate You're grazing intensity You know if you're You can potentially graze a pasture multiple times in a season if you don't hit it too hard and you let enough recovery come back um And the other thing is that while you're grazing You're preventing those grasses from maturing because you keep damaging the plant. So it has to fix itself before it can mature, right? Um, but we also know that as grasses mature they decline in quality So if we can graze those grasses enough though, we're not beating them up But we're preventing them from entering the seed stage or their reproductive stage They're going to maintain a higher quality for longer because they keep putting out that leaf material instead of the seed material And that leaf is what we want to graze. That's the high quality part So some really really simple options Deferred rotational grazing that's kind of what we talked about with this targeted season grazing So if you cannot graze your pastures while it's warm season time And maximize your grazing while it's cool season time and hit those invasive That's a really good option to Increase those desirable species in your pasture Then you can hit those pastures potentially multiple times when those cool seasons are coming up Another option is restoration grazing. This one is super easy. I think if you have the pastures to do it This is so this is like the least amount of work All you're going to do is let one or more go completely on graze for the whole whole growing season And you're probably thinking how am I going to do that? Like I need the I need the grass to to feed my cattle, right? um It doesn't mean you're not going to graze when it's dormant But if you can just stay off a pasture or at least a certain area in the pasture During the growing season to let those species fully Go through their life stage and put down as many roots as they can Then you can go back in in the winter and graze it when it's dormant. Yes, it's going to be lower quality But it's a good option for winter grazing and you can still get used out of that pasture And you don't damage it as much when it's dormant Okay And then the other thing I just had to throw up there is that intensive rotational grazing that I talked about at the beginning um Really fast and intense grazing to keep grasses in their vegetative stage you can graze paddocks multiple times But it's going to be a big investment for fencing and labor. So kind of things you have to think about um, so again grazing management On cropland and grassland, it's all about protecting your pasture health and meeting your nutrient requirements for your cattle They are like opposing forces. You kind of have to find a happy medium um Fencing and water can kind of hinder some of this rotational grazing because obviously you can't put can't fence off a part of your Pasture that doesn't have water and make your cows stay in there um, so those are things you kind of have to think about and again Consider starting small like if you have one pasture you want to try some rotational grazing on just see how it goes Um, I think it's a really good idea Um, so now kind of mentioned stockpiling a couple times in this presentation um Stockpiling grass is all about letting it grow to maturity and waiting until it's dormant to graze it. Okay? um Especially for some of our cool season species they have that bump of growth in the fall when it gets cold and rainy again um And that can increase the growth in that pasture and actually increase the amount of dead stockpile you're going to have on that pasture So I know um the dakota is we we got some pretty good weather in the fall and some decent rainfall So there's a lot of areas and a lot of producers that were able to increase the recovery of their pastures Um, and then they actually have extra grass to graze this winter um And those are all grazing days that they're not necessarily having to feed a harvested harvested forage. So um This is a really good picture that I think kind of demonstrates my point. I hope you guys can see it This is a fence line dividing two pastures in the exact same location with the exact same Weather conditions and everything but you can see how differently they have been managed during the grazing season during the growing season One is protecting soil health And providing additional winter feed as a dormant stockpiled grass And one is not going to give us anything Until it grows again when we have rain and a spring green up This is another picture that really demonstrates how Stockpiled or grass cover left on the pasture can harvest that moisture um This moisture either blew away or is already melted and evaporated This moisture is going to hang around because of that grass. So Again, um, if you kind of think about those growing curves of different grass species Um, the earlier you graze a pasture in the season The more recovery it's going to have the more likely that you can graze it as stockpiled grass in the winter Using a rest rotation strategy is really beneficial for stockpiling grass The longer you can go to let that grass be ungrazed the more you're going to have as a supply in the winter And dry cows again, they're at their lowest nutrient requirements in their life cycle They can pretty well meet the requirements on native dormant grass Those invasive grasses again, they don't hold on to their nutrient nutrient quality anymore Um, so you're going to have to supplement a lot more on those invasive grasses um But again stockpiling grass its dormant grass is not as high quality So as those cows advance in their gestation You're going to probably have to provide more supplement and again Winter weather conditions exist So even if they're out grazing stockpiled grass, you may have to provide some hay and things like that When weather requires it So some of my take home messages I covered a lot of strategies very briefly in this But think about ways that you can increase your grazing days Um Make your cows do the work to go harvest the feed they need right If you have the opportunity even adding a couple weeks of grazing Or a month of corn residue something like that that you're not having to feed hay That's going to be really impactful on your harvested feed costs Seeking collaborations on crop land Between crop producers and livestock production Um, there's a lot of benefits to this and again Even small windows of grazing can be really impactful. So if you think about ways that you can collaborate um, and again Soil health is really important on both crop land and grassland Um soil health impacts our plant health which impacts our animal health Which impacts our health? So it kind of starts from the ground up And anything you can do to increase diversity Again, you can interpret this how you want um increase your options Increases your adaptability give yourself options for grazing give yourself options for different species Maybe consider multi species grazing multiple plant species things like that not saying those are like the how to But just think about ways that you can increase diversity on your operation Um, and with that, this is my contact information um, again, I'm a range field specialist. So um With South Dakota State Extension Located in pier kind of centrally located in South Dakota So I'd be really happy to talk to any of you guys Um and answer any questions that you have Thank you