Grazing management key to drought recovery and resilience

After a dry summer, ranchers should have a grazing management plan in place.

Drought conditions can impact grazing resources across North Dakota, creating challenges for ranchers.

Management decisions made now and in the aftermath of the drought can have long-term impacts on grazing resources. Grazing management decisions will directly influence the ability of rangelands and pastures to recover from drought and can increase a ranch's drought resilience.

“It is critical that every rancher has a grazing plan in place with well-defined triggers and actions for drought and other disturbances, so they can respond quickly and build resilience,” says Miranda Meehan, NDSU Extension livestock environmental stewardship specialist.

Fall grazing can be driven by late-season precipitation and species composition of rangelands and pastures. If the pasture comprises tame grass species such as brome grass or Kentucky bluegrass, there should be no long-term negative impacts from grazing this fall, as long as pastures are not overgrazed.

NDSU Extension found that when Kentucky bluegrass was overgrazed during drought, growth was reduced by 70% the following year.

Late-season precipitation creates the opportunity for regrowth of native grasses that were grazed before reaching the reproductive stage.

“If grazing native range in the fall, be careful to monitor utilization and avoid overgrazing to protect tiller development of cool-season grasses,” says Meehan.

As a general rule of thumb, grasses should not be grazed below the second node, which is located between the first and second leaves.

Tillers are used by plants to initiate growth in the spring. Fall droughts either prevent buds from breaking dormancy, thus preventing new tiller growth, or cause the death of those tillers that did grow. If a tiller is lost due to drought stress or grazing, the plant will need to develop a new tiller in the spring, delaying grass growth and development.

Additionally, NDSU Extension has found that heavy grazing (>80% use) in the fall can reduce forage production of cool-season-dominated rangeland and pasture by over 50% the following grazing season.

Meehan recommends that ranchers avoid grazing pastures that received heavy use this grazing season to allow them to recover. The stress of drought, in combination with overuse, can have long-term impacts on rangeland. Overgrazing affects the entire rangeland plant community, leading to a loss of plant species diversity and biomass, soil erosion and weed growth, and reduced soil water-holding capacity, ultimately decreasing forage production and animal performance.

NDSU Extension specialists have observed delays of up to three weeks in grazing readiness for introduced cool-season species and four weeks for native cool-season species following drought.

“While it may be tempting to start grazing early due to limited forage resources, it can have long-term impacts on forage production and plant health,” says Kevin Sedivec, NDSU Extension rangeland management specialist.

Regardless of grass species, grazing before plants reach the appropriate stage of growth for grazing readiness reduces herbage production by as much as 60%. Pastures and range grazing too early may take several years of deferment or even rest before the stand regains productivity.

Allowing pasture and rangeland to recover in the fall or the following spring will improve these grazing resources’ ability to recover from the drought.

“Late summer is the time to evaluate your grazing system to determine how to increase management flexibility and resilience of your grazing resources and ranch,” says Sedivec.

A grazing system should be planned around the available grazing resources to achieve optimal forage and livestock production. Many ranchers graze a combination of tame grass and native rangeland pastures. In North Dakota, tame grass pastures are typically comprised of cool-season species that exhibit rapid growth in the spring. Grazing systems that include both cool- and warm-season plants have greater resilience. Having a diversity of cool- and warm-season grasses helps reduce susceptibility to drought, ensuring some level of forage growth regardless of precipitation timing.

Diverse grasslands are also better able to meet the nutritional needs of grazing livestock, as grasses in the vegetative stage have higher protein and energy.

Integrating annual forages provides opportunities to extend the grazing system earlier in the spring and later in the fall. These additional forage options provide for greater flexibility in management, reducing the stress of early grazing and/or overutilization on pastures.

Fall-seeded winter cereals, such as winter wheat, winter rye and triticale, allow ranchers to start grazing earlier in the growing season, while avoiding the negative impacts of grazing pastures prior to grazing readiness.

A grazing system with multiple pastures also provides greater flexibility in moving cattle and creates resiliency of the entire unit through grazing recovery, intensity and distribution.

During drought years, minimize overuse by restricting grazing to one pasture rather than the entire unit. One year of overuse will not have long-term negative impacts and often promotes a positive response in plant diversity, as long as sufficient recovery is provided the next year.