A long-term strategy for avoiding muddy pastures

By the U of A System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The past winter in Arkansas has been cold and wet, with cycles of freezing and thawing that have often resulted in muddy pastures and access roads for many producers. This can put a strain on both livestock and equipment.

MUDDY DAYS AHEAD — Proper pasture management can help reduce the worst of muddy days in Arkansas. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

Despite the near-perennial nature of this recurring situation, once spring has sprung, it’s often all but forgotten until the next hard winter comes around.

Dirk Philipp, associate professor of forage agronomy for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said there are several things, however, that livestock producers can do to alleviate this situation over the long term.

“Soil types and textures are diverse, and many farms feature multiple soil series, each with its own hydrology,” Philipp said. “Learning about these features and finding information is important to water resource management.”

A good start, Philipp said, is the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Web Soil Survey, which provides information on soil hydrology and the original native vegetation that covered the area. The NRCS data can be used to establish forages in the long-term that can cope with various conditions, be they wetter or drier.

“Eastern gamagrass and switchgrass work well for wetter areas and along creek beds,” Philipp said. “These can be extended at the desired widths and grazed, hayed, or both. Tall fescue can be used in somewhat wetter conditions as well, and orchardgrass in shaded environments.”

Philipp said that along former and existing creek beds, trees can be reestablished, but should be spaced to allow enough light for forages to grow underneath.

The other obvious key to taming a muddy pasture is good grazing management. Given the high rain intensity frequently seen in Arkansas, as well as the prevailing soil types in the region, mud cannot entirely be avoided.

“But there are a few management principles that help keep pastures healthy,” Philipp said.

If needed, assign a pasture for hay feeding during winter. The area should be large enough to move feeders around and place bales strategically to avoid excessive trampling.

“The sacrifice pasture should have good drainage, be on higher ground and placed strategically so that if runoff occurs, you can capture the nutrients in another pasture,” Phillipp said. “Your prime perennial cool season and warm season forages should not be stocked for long periods during winter, unless you plan to graze off senesced material.”

Moist soil compacts rapidly, Philipp said, with long-term implications for weed control as many undesired species are able to out-compete forages on disturbed ground. Incorporating good grazing management with the appropriate grazing methods, such as rotational stocking, creep grazing and strip grazing, will help producers avoid the downsides of overstocking.

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk.

After a disappointing first cutting, Arkansas pasture managers cross fingers for the second

By Ryan McGeeney
U of A System Division of Agriculture 

LITTLE ROCK — Pasture managers across Arkansas are reporting extraordinarily low yields from first cuttings.

Kenny Simon, instructor and extension forage specialist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said growers are seeing yields from first cuttings of ryegrass and other forage grasses reduced anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of expectations.

PASTURELANDS — Pasture managers across Arkansas are reporting extraordinarily low yields from first cuttings, seeing yields from first cuttings of ryegrass and other forage grasses reduced anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of expectations. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

According to the July 10 Crop Progress report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, 81 percent of non-alfalfa hay was in good or fair condition, with 11 percent rated poor or very poor. The same report showed 24 percent at a second cutting of hay, compared to 50 percent last year. Ninety-eight percent had completed a first cutting of hay, just short of last year’s 100 percent.

Simon said that with record-high fertilizer prices last year — doubling and nearly tripling in some cases — many growers chose to put out less fertilizer in fields than they typically would.

“Or perhaps none at all,” he said.

“But this low fertility issue is not something that’s come about overnight,” Simon added. “It’s an accumulation of several years.”

Simon said that despite outreach efforts by the Cooperative Extension Service and other farming resources, there persists a widespread misunderstanding of soils’ true nutritional needs.

“It’s typical that a producer will fertilize a field with a complete fertilizer early in the season, then only come back with nitrogen as needed,” he said. “We’ve been doing our best to educate growers about the importance of soil fertility and the correct fertilizer applications.

“Of course, sometimes it’s simply the case that the producers understand what they need to be doing, but it’s just not economically feasible,” he said.

Other issues have conspired to affect the year’s hay crop as well. Les Walz, extension agriculture and natural resources educator, said the first cutting in the state fell victim to the “perfect storm.”

“Last year, we had the drought across a large portion of the state,” Walz said. “Nobody wanted to fertilize during a drought, especially given the high prices, so we had low-fertility fields going into the winter.

“Then we had that freeze the week of Christmas, where we had single-digit temperatures, and we got a lot of winterkill on some of our warm season perennial grasses, like Bermuda and bahia, as well as turfgrass and some ornamentals” he said.

This year’s notably wet spring was then capped off by an unusually cool May, with overnight temperatures consistently in the 50s in the northern part of the state. The southern portion of the state saw those cool temperatures during the first week of May, which Walz said delayed their growth.

“With 50-degree nights, the warm season grasses really didn’t take off,” Walz said. “All those things fell in line to add up to a really bad first cutting.”

Most cattle and hay producers in Arkansas tend to let cattle graze those pastures for much of the first half of the year, Simon said, executing a first cutting in the early summer and a second cutting three to five weeks later, depending on the grass variety. Producers who maintain dedicated hay fields may take as many as four or even five cuttings in a season.

For the majority of Arkansas producers, however, much is riding on this year’s second cutting. Simon said that the ongoing rainfall throughout much of the state will likely benefit most growers, provided they can harvest their grasses at the right moment.

“The nutrient value is largely tied to the maturity stage of the plant,” Simon said. “It’s the No. 1 thing that influences forage quality. In areas where we’re getting rain, grass is maturing quickly.”

In 2022, many cattle producers in Arkansas and elsewhere were forced to deeply cull their herds, selling off more than they preferred, as the year’s widespread drought made forage scarce. Simon said that despite a disappointing first cutting, cattle producers may yet be able to harvest and stockpile enough forage to avoid a second year of drastic culling.

Greener in 2023

“We’re a lot greener now than we were this time last year,” Simon said. “We might have a really good second cutting, or even a third.”

Going forward, Simon said that soil testing — and adhering to appropriate fertilizer recommendations in response — will be key for pasture managers hoping for a more reliable first cutting in 2024 and beyond. Additionally, managing the canopy height of grasses will also be essential to success, he said.

“When doing a hay cutting, we need to raise our mower to a 2 to 3-inch height,” he said. “A common thread I’ve seen in damaged fields is that they were scalped to the ground, cut at 1-1.5 inches, and cut late in the season.

“With the forage top growth, the root system is a mirror image of the canopy,” he said. “If you have 1-2 inches of top growth, your roots are going to be really shallow in the soil.”

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.

Pasture management key to profit and water quality

By the U of A System Division of Agriculture

LITTLE ROCK — Well-managed pastures can have a positive effect both on water quality and farm budgets. The Cooperative Extension Service, part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, is working with partners and landowners throughout the state to make this potential a reality.

PROTECT AND ENHANCE — John Pennington, extension water quality educator for the Division of Agriculture, is part of a five-year Regional Conservation Partnership Project focused on pasture landowners within the Buffalo National River watershed. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

By re-establishing or invigorating existing pasture forages, farm production and profitability can increase while also protecting water quality.

John Pennington, extension water quality educator for the Division of Agriculture, said that nowhere is this more true than in the Buffalo National River Watershed, where a five-year Regional Conservation Partnership Project is focusing efforts on pasture landowners within the watershed.

The project provides as much as $400,000 in additional conservation practice funding annually for qualifying landowners, in addition to the usual funding allocation to Natural Resources Conservation Service county offices serving the Buffalo River Watershed.  

“The current price of inputs such as fertilizers and fuel make retaining and utilizing existing on-farm nutrients even more important,” Pennington said.

“Controlling and rotating grazing is a critical step to maintaining healthy forage stands and soil health,” he said, adding that “sometimes pastures need fertility improvements, such as lime or simply reseeding, as a result of periods of drought or disease. Keeping the pasture covered with forage is critical to both production and water quality.”

Rotational grazing and other conservation practices can increase farm production and profit while reducing nitrogen, bacteria, phosphorus and sediment in runoff from agricultural lands within the watershed. The practices are also recommended in the voluntary Buffalo River Watershed Management plan.

Rotational grazing has many benefits, including:

• Allowing periods of recovery for the forage and soil

• Distribution of animal nutrients more evenly throughout the fields

• Increased grazing efficiency and

• Increased water and fertilizer retention in the soil

The Cooperative Extension Service works with multiple agencies and organizations, including the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and others to form the Buffalo River Watershed Enhancement Project, which seeks to help watershed residents and landowners reduce erosion on their land and enhance water quality in the Buffalo National River. The partnership makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding available to landowners participating in the project each year. To learn more, visit https://www.uaex.uada.edu/environment-nature/water/buffalo-river-project.aspx.

For more information on pasture forage establishment, rotational grazing, or water quality check in with your local county extension office, conservation district, or Natural Resource Conservation Service office. To potentially receive funding for pasture management activities visit your local Natural Resource Conservation Service office.