Grazing in Michiana
In last month's column I wrote about how tremendous our growing season was here, and it really was. Since then, I've had some conversations with some other members of our grazing group that we're part of. Some of them live up in Michigan and one other person is in western New York, and they had extremely dry conditions. They have had very little pasture late summer, so we've been very fortunate to have what we've had this year.
I was having a conversation with my son, Ben, about the pastures at the C.R. 36 farm. He noted that when he is grazing the cows on irrigated pasture they produce quite well and then when he goes to pastures that have not been irrigated, milk production goes down. It appears as though the pasture that was irrigated is much more of a higher quality of feed than the pastures that are not irrigated.
We know that we can grow a lot more pasture with irrigation. It is interesting that this late in the season the irrigation would have that kind of impact. We haven't done a lot of irrigating, and all the pasture received the same amount of rainfall in the last month or so.
We were talking about what the difference is because it looks similar. Could it be that there is more clover, which is very high-quality feed, or is it just simply more digestible? This is just another example of how beneficial irrigation is for growing pastures.
Another management task we've been working on is calculating if we have enough pasture for the heifers to last until the middle of December. From Oct. 1 to Dec. 15 is approximately 75 days. We have 55 acres that are available to graze in the next 75 days, which is 7/10 of an acre per day (55 acres divided by 75 days equals 7/10 of an acre per day) that we could use and it would last until Dec. 15.
So, the next question we need to ask is, is that enough feed for them? We have 82 head there and they need 20 pounds of dry matter per head per day. So that means they need approximately 1,600 to 1,700 pounds of dry matter per day.
On Sept. 29, Abby measured the pastures on the farm where the heifers are. The pastures that were ready for grazing had from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of dry matter per acre. We want to utilize 75% of the pasture that's available, so it leaves 25% so the ground is well covered and can regrow some this fall yet. So, with 4,500 pounds of dry matter per acre, 7/10 of an acre equals 3,200 pounds of dry matter available each day.
But we only want to utilize 75% of that 3,200 pounds, so that leaves us a little less than 2,400 pounds of dry matter that we can use. So, to figure out if it's enough feed, we take the amount needed, which is 1,700 pounds of dry matter per day, divided by 2,400 pounds of available dry matter per day and that equals 7/10 of an acre. So, that's the amount we want to use so it will last for 75 days.
So far this month, we've been using that amount, and we are observing that it is about the right amount and so will continue doing that. Of course, if the weather changes and it gets too wet and muddy, then we'll have to change our plans.
I had several calls last fall after I mentioned our use of gibberellic acid on the pastures. This is a reminder that we can spray that on, when the average daily temperature is 40 to 60 degrees and we will produce approximately 1,000 to 1,400 pounds more dry matter per acre than when not using it. It's a very economically priced feed, and if you're going to be grazing it, this will help the grass last longer into the fall and provide more feed for the animals.
The brand name is Ryzup Smartgrass and is sold by a company named Valent. On the label, it says it can be used for organic production, but, of course, your certifiers would probably be able to tell you if it's allowed or not if you are organic. We've already started spraying some of it on our oats and turnips that we've seeded this fall and also on some of our pastures that we'd like to have grow back a little faster. I would say that the most benefit would come from using it in the last half of October and the first part of November. I guess I haven't tried it much later than that, but that's usually when the temperature is in that range.
Editor's note: Mike Martin invites readers to send in grazing-related questions for him to answer in future columns. Readers should send their questions to: mikesue.martin@gmail.com.