Grasses and Grazing

Nitrate poisoning – we have all heard the term and we have all heard the stories of cows that seem perfectly healthy one minute and are down the next. In this article we will discuss scenarios that can lead to potential nitrate poisoning and how to handle forages with high nitrates once you have identified them.

Our creator designed this world to operate through interwoven functions of biological components, which collectively form an ecosystem. Ecosystems function more efficiently when organism populations remain in balance with each other.

Someone once said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” That may be a fitting adage to describe the newest old idea for managing native grass pastures. Beginning in the 1990s, a group of range scientists at Oklahoma State began exploring an approach to managing pastures based on the interaction of fire and grazing.

Mississippi State University Prairie Research Unit didn’t feed the 90 to 110 large round bales per week they usually do; this year they fed zero.

Sometimes the things we are unable to see can be the difference between a successful grazing operation and one that struggles; managing for the unseen makes the difference.

Tall fescue is an important cool-season forage in many parts of the U.S. It is high-yielding, persistent and adapted to a wide range of soil fertility conditions.