Grasses and Grazing

Kyle A. Brazil is a certified wildlife biologist and graduate research assistant at the Center for Native Grasslands Management, University of Tennessee – Knoxville.

We’ve all had one in our herd now and again; I call mine Big Bertha.

She’s not the boss cow. That’s because she’s just too big and too slow to be bothered with defending her territory to be first in line to the barn.

In Nebraska and many areas of the Midwest, summer pasture is a hot commodity – and often harder to find or more expensive than winter feed.

Converting pastures from toxic endophyte-infected tall fescue to novel endophyte-infected tall fescue can be a difficult and complex task, given the hardiness of this grass-fungal association and the pervasiveness of toxic endophyte-infected seed.

Forage is the foundation for all cattle and equine diets. The digestive systems in ruminants such as cattle, goats, deer and elk and the hindgut-fermenting species such as horses, elephants and rodents, all digest forages through a process called fermentation.

Brassicas are cool-season annual forages that can be utilized as pasture during the spring, summer and late fall grazing seasons when cool-season perennial pastures may not be as productive.