By Gene Schmitz
A drive through grass country in summer shows many pastures with more weeds than grass. To his trained eyes, Gene Schmitz sees pastures needing renovation.
“Many beef farmers don’t see pastures as a crop to be managed. Pastures are just there to be grazed,” says Schmitz, a University of Missouri Extension livestock specialist, Warsaw, Mo.
“Producers should ask, ‘How much grass is there?’” Good grass adds more pounds of beef to be sold. Weeds don’t help.
Resistance to renovation comes from farmers who say, “I don’t want to kill my clover,” Schmitz says. “A close look shows more weeds than clover—or grass.”
Schmitz is the newest member of the Alliance for Grassland Renewal, which teaches replacing toxic Kentucky 31 fescue with novel endophyte fescue. New toxin-free varieties are available.
The Alliance plans four one-day workshops in March. This year, sessions start March 28 in Welch, Okla. That’s the first out-of-state workshop for the four-year-old group.
“Northeast Oklahoma is a hotbed of toxic fescue in cool-season pastures,” says Craig Roberts, an MU Extension forage specialist who grew up in the area. He heads the Alliance teaching team.
Ranchers in northwestern Oklahoma, southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas and northwest Arkansas are urged to attend, Roberts says. All near the new location in the four-corner region are welcomed.
The workshops return to Missouri Mar. 29 at Mount Vernon, Mar. 30 at Columbia and Mar. 31 at Linneus.
The Alliance is made up of MU educators, federal agencies, farmers and company representatives. Eventually, they plan to spread the word across the Fescue Belt, from Missouri and Kansas south and east to the Atlantic coast.
Fescue dominates cool-season pastures across a large part of that country. Fescue is productive and persistent grass, Schmitz says.
However, after it became widespread, K-31 variety was found to hold a toxic fungus living between cell walls of the grass. The fungus creates a toxin, ergovaline, which protects the grass from overgrazing. However, the toxin cuts beef gains, hurts reproduction, adds heat stress and more.
New novel-endophyte varieties give relief. Fungi that do not contain toxin are bred into the fescues. Beneficial endophytes protect the grass without making toxin.
Researchers found that tall fescue without endophyte won’t survive under grazing.
“The new fescue varieties work,” Schmitz says. “The first things producers notice: Cows leave ponds and shade to graze during the day. The added gains show up later. That’s the start toward more pounds of beef per acre.”
Renovation does take skill. The workshops explain the benefits of renovation. To start, every tiller of infected fescue must be killed before new seed is planted. Also, infected seed in the soil must be sprouted and killed.
Any infected fescue left in the field eventually takes over.
MU researchers, working at Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station farms, perfected a spray-smother-spray method to eradicate the old before planting the new.
Renovation becomes one of the most profitable practices graziers can adopt, Roberts says.
Source:missouri.edu