Ep. 276 What The Expert Says About Grazing Native Pasture w/ Dr. Patrick Keyser
Dr. Patrick Keyser, of University of Tennessee, joins us to discuss something we know our listeners are passionate about, Native Grazing! He has researched and reviewed colleagues research for years on the topic. We discuss what grasses are best for cattle, what forbs go well in the mixes, and how much of the mix should be cool season grasses. We also discuss the timing of grazing the native pastures. We believe native grazing is a great forefront for conservation, and could be a huge piece to sustainable agriculture in the future, and Dr. Keyser helps us explore that.
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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:22
Unknown
in three, two, one. Doctor Kaiser, you're a humble man. Introducing yourself without the doctor, I, we don't get that too often. But, we really appreciate you being here. I wanted to start off a little. A little hot and a little, pointed to our listeners.
00:00:21:16 - 00:00:44:22
Unknown
I'd say the vast majority are in the Midwest. If you were designing a grazing system and you had you had 160 acres. Let's say, for cattle or designing a grazing system. You can put whatever you want on that land. How are you setting this up? How are you designing it? If I'm in the Midwest, I'm going to use that assumption, Nicholas.
00:00:44:22 - 00:01:08:21
Unknown
So I'm going to assume I'm north of the fescue barrel. And so I'm going to think in terms of a mix of cool and warm season perennial pastures. I like annuals. They have a role. They're good for wildlife that they're not. That's not a bad thing. But from just a straight up economic standpoint and a labor standpoint, in a time standpoint, any kind of forward system ought to be built on the back of, perennials.
00:01:08:23 - 00:01:34:22
Unknown
And so at y'all's latitude and I will use that as an example, I maybe I'll use the Iowa Missouri line. That cool season pasture could be an introduced species like fescue or brome. And from my experience in North Missouri, it would be probably some of each, maybe some autographs thrown in. And then the balance would be a perennial warm season pasture.
00:01:35:00 - 00:01:57:16
Unknown
And depending on some of your objectives, that could be a multi-species blend built around bluestem and Indian grass. That would be a great forage resource. I'm actually kind of fond of switchgrass, and a lot of people kind of shrink back when you talk about switchgrass, because it can kind of be big and ugly. But switchgrass is a very resilient grass with a very high carrying capacity.
00:01:57:18 - 00:02:30:18
Unknown
And in a grazing system, it can take a little more abuse than, than bluestem. And let's face it, I don't care how good a manager you are, sooner or later you're going to cut a corner, make a mistake, and something's going to get a little banged up. So switchgrass has a place, and particularly if you've got some damp spots in that, that, 160 acres back on the cool seasons, you know, we have some, the only cool seasons I'm aware of that are very productive, that there's good seed source for our ryes Canada, Virginia, and for y'all, probably not southern.
00:02:30:18 - 00:02:51:17
Unknown
But anyway, the wild rice and they're very productive. I don't have a lot of experience with them, but if you wanted to make that entire system native, that could be your cool system component or a cool season component. The difficulty with wild rice, as I understand it, is that they don't necessarily last a long time. And I think that may be in part due to management.
00:02:51:17 - 00:03:13:19
Unknown
But also, you know, you think about things like side oats, which are a little earlier successional species inside oats. You know, you don't really expect them to persist in the stand long term, whereas bluestem is a climax species and you expect it to be there sort of in perpetuity. But if you really want to avoid the introduced species, I would go with the wild rice.
00:03:13:21 - 00:03:39:16
Unknown
The one question I haven't answered is the ratio. And so in my mind, you know, if you look at existing forage systems and you take me down to the Gulf Coast states, it's basically 200% perennial warm seasons if you take me and I've not looked at any pastures in the state of Minnesota, but my assumption is about 100% cool seasonally least if you go far enough north in Minnesota, you know, central Wisconsin, maybe as well.
00:03:39:18 - 00:04:02:00
Unknown
And so as you move up that that, latitudinal gradient, there's a trend towards more and more cool season. Or if you're heading south more and more warm season in North Missouri. You know, one of the interesting things in southern Iowa, one of the interesting things, if you look at it historically, that was a system that was about 95 plus percent perennial warm season grasses.
00:04:02:02 - 00:04:23:21
Unknown
And so, so much of eastern North America, up to shockingly high latitudes was dominated by perennial warm seasons. And so if I was going to do that there, you know, one thought would be to go maybe, a 5050, the further north you go, you might want to lean a little more on the cool seasons. But then again, there's also how you choose to manage.
00:04:23:21 - 00:04:41:13
Unknown
Right. And so, Nicholas, that may be a whole lot more answer than you were looking for. But that was that's the kind of things I would think about. Well, what about I get this question a lot and I don't know if you have any experience with it. Hey, I've got this cool season pasture. I really don't want to rip it up.
00:04:41:13 - 00:05:04:12
Unknown
A lot of them. I don't want to spray. Can I just introduce natives into it? And, I guess before I get my thoughts, I'd love to hear why. Yeah. So the short answer is no. Our perennial cool seasons that are out there, even if it's a very ratty pasture that's been beat up. Those perennial cool seasons are.
00:05:04:12 - 00:05:24:11
Unknown
And I'm a lot more familiar with fescue than I am smooth brome. But I know y'all got a lot of brome up in that part of the world, but what I can tell you is they are very tenacious species, non-native, so they have some competitive advantages that are typical of introduced species, especially aggressive introduced species. And, it just it's not going to work.
00:05:24:11 - 00:05:47:11
Unknown
You're wasting seed if you're not willing to do something either chemicals or tillage. Save your money that that's the cost of doing business that the competition is just too strong for. Well, a small seedling to deal with a thick perennial grass or even even a, you know, again, a beat up pasture that's fairly thin. I would not do it.
00:05:47:13 - 00:06:10:23
Unknown
Well, then here's another question. I've heard it recommended that you put Timothy or, and or orchard grass with your, natives because they're more clumpy. They don't they don't kind of, like fescue or brome. You can kind of create this, you know, sod what do you think of doing that? If they're okay with putting some non-natives in there?
00:06:11:01 - 00:06:30:00
Unknown
Well, my objection to doing that wouldn't be based on the fact that it's non-native. We often put some non-natives out there. And let's face it, our farms and our our hunting properties are covered with non-natives in many respects. But I still would not do it. And here's here's another reason why I would be hesitant to do that one, I'm not sure what it's gaining you.
00:06:30:00 - 00:06:50:02
Unknown
Number one. I think the logic is sort of a longer grazing season, maybe, but if you're going to go to the trouble in a cool season dominated farm system, which is what most of the South you know, really, almost down into central Alabama, and you're going to go to the trouble to establish a warm season perennial.
00:06:50:04 - 00:07:11:18
Unknown
You're spending money, you're, spending time. And there's always risk. I don't care what you're playing. Serial right has risk to it, you know, much easier to establish. But any planting project has risk. And with, small seeded natives, which haven't been through any plant breeding to enhance germination or early seedling vigor, the risk is a little bit higher.
00:07:11:20 - 00:07:30:19
Unknown
So why go to all that trouble to create a warm season pasture that then is going to be compromised in terms of its productivity and its management at some level by having a cool season component there. So if I'm going to go to the trouble, I'm going to have me a warm season pasture and I'm going to have a cool season pasture.
00:07:31:11 - 00:07:57:11
Unknown
Totally, totally separate. Yeah, that's how I would approach it. And if you think about grazing management, you know, if you have the right kind of spring where the cool season species are really prospering. So you get some early warm temperatures, but not too warm for the cool season species. And you get a lot of rain, or in other words, one of those springs where, say, orchard grass and just really be productive.
00:07:57:13 - 00:08:27:01
Unknown
Well, wherever it's being productive, it is creating competition for the warm seasons and the warm season. Productivity is going to be slowed down, at least for that season. But that can turn into a snowball effect. And so in the long run, I think when you're trying to manage just, a pasture that has a substantial perennial cool season and perennial warm season component, it's, I don't know if you ever did this when you were a kid, but you're playing in the pool and you got one of those big beach balls, and you try to sit on it.
00:08:27:03 - 00:08:46:10
Unknown
You can't do it. And to me, trying to manage a warm season, cool season, perennial pasture mix together, it's a little bit like that. It's going to tend to run one way or run the other. And again, if you're making the investment for warm seasons, my presumption is a typical Iowa farm or Illinois farm where there's cattle has a lot of cool season grass already.
00:08:46:12 - 00:09:04:15
Unknown
And so if it runs in the direction of cool season in that mixed pasture, what have you accomplished other than spending a lot of money? At least that's all I look at. Yeah. Yeah okay. That that is really helpful. Now I've got to clarify something earlier when you said what percentage do you want to be your cool season.
00:09:04:15 - 00:09:21:06
Unknown
And you were saying that the wild rise are good options, which I've also heard that, Arctic or prairie brome, which is a native, is a good option. So you put those in there. Okay. You're not. You wouldn't put them with your big bluestem and Indian grass and switchgrass. You would put them in a totally separate lot.
00:09:21:10 - 00:09:26:21
Unknown
Is that what I'm hearing you say?
00:09:26:23 - 00:09:56:11
Unknown
To a large extent, yes. Because they're both native, they would probably play better together. And and here in our latitudes, we have done very little work with the cool season perennial natives. And the reason for that is that the, wild rise bright dormancy and begin to be productive relatively late in the spring so I can get on orchard grass and fescue earlier than I can on on wild Rise.
00:09:56:16 - 00:10:28:14
Unknown
Maybe not by much, but a little bit. And really, our warm season natives don't break dormancy that much later than our cool season perennials. In other words, there's about a month at our latitude, maybe six weeks where, I have fescue, but not natives and wild ryes. All they really do is give me about another four weeks in that window where I've already covered up with cool season perennials, right?
00:10:28:14 - 00:10:56:14
Unknown
I mean, I'm ed up with fescue and or true grass and, well, I guess those are the main ones, some bluegrass. So the really not add that many grazing days to my calendar, and they're doing so at an expense. So really for me, they're, they're, it's not that big an advantage. It's y'all's latitude. It may be that you could, gain a little more advantage, but, because they're natives, I think I would definitely try mixing those together, whereas I would not do that with non-native.
00:10:56:14 - 00:11:38:19
Unknown
I wouldn't put the orchard grass, Timothy brown fescue in there at all. The wild rise in the prairie brome. I'd definitely be interested in trying that. And that's some experience that again, at our latitude, we just don't have. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Here's a question I have for you along these lines, doctor. Kaiser, I think I heard once in another from another, a Prairie Media channel that, you know, one of the things I used to marvel at driving across, I was like, man, the the early, settlers here, the people, the homesteaders, the people setting up these pastures that the I mean, one of the modern wonders of the world could be
00:11:38:19 - 00:12:14:19
Unknown
the fact that they were able to, plant brome on every square inch of, of of the, Midwest. And, I later heard that, well, the main reason we have so much, Brome and other cool season non-native grasses is because of the intensive gray, grazing that took place. You know, just the, cattle weren't rotated enough, and they eliminated the, the native warm season grasses.
00:12:14:19 - 00:12:52:14
Unknown
But, things like brome and Kentucky, Kentucky blue and and fescue, those things could persist because they had, you know, they're just more durable, I guess, to the to the heavy grazing and is, from your research, have you found that to be true? That that I mean, this could obviously still play out today if someone's if someone is going back to, we'll say square one and they're using, chemical burn down, maybe some tillage mixed in as well, but trying to go back to a blank slate and restart a pasture if they are not careful enough.
00:12:52:14 - 00:13:20:02
Unknown
And they are, aren't rotating their, their animals with the correct frequency. Well, it, I mean, I suppose it would happen again if it's true that we got all this brome take over because of overgrazing. Yeah. So native grasses. One thing to keep in mind are we refer to them as tall grasses or tall growing. And y'all seeing mature big bluestem or Indian grass or switchgrass and how big you can get.
00:13:20:04 - 00:13:40:16
Unknown
And in, in these plants, there's this structure that we refer to. It is a growing point. And that growing point in native grasses is elevated above the ground. So I don't know if y'all very familiar with the Bermuda grass grow a lot. Yeah. But the further south you hear, the more grows. And people's up around people's patios.
00:13:40:17 - 00:14:03:14
Unknown
Yeah. Okay. But but it it's structures are such that the entire plant really close to the ground. But you think a mountain is an erect, growing species, and that growing point being up off the ground, it's easy to differentiate them completely. Number one. Number two, it's easy to, take that growing point out which slows that grasses growth down even more.
00:14:03:16 - 00:14:24:21
Unknown
And so, for those structural reasons, and there's one other big reason, and I'll just give you an example. We've got plenty of, pastures that we've established for our projects and our establishment is never perfect. We don't we don't get 100% stand, ever. But in some of the gaps and those stands, other things come in, and that's nature's way, right?
00:14:24:23 - 00:14:45:19
Unknown
We got long growing seasons down here. Plenty of rainfall usually. And one of the things that often will come in is some Bermuda grass. And what I've always observed is cattle will walk across that Bermuda grass to get to the next by the bluestem Indian grass native. And I can go into a place in pasture, and I cannot find a bite on a patch of Bermuda grass.
00:14:45:19 - 00:15:08:02
Unknown
They completely ignore it. So in range science world, we refer to these as increases and decreases. Right. And I'm sure you're familiar with that terminology. But for, for your listeners an increase or something that and heavy grazing pressure becomes more abundant in a pasture is basically a 1 to 1 correlation with things cattle would rather not eat, whereas, decrease or is the opposite.
00:15:08:02 - 00:15:28:11
Unknown
It's something that as soon as they get turned into a pasture, the first thing they go after is that species, and they will preferentially graze it to the point that it begins to disappear from the stand. And so, you know, what rain scientists have done for years is walk into a pastor and look for certain species. And if they see a particular species, they know the place has been overgrazed.
00:15:28:13 - 00:15:55:07
Unknown
So back to your question. Absolutely. With native grasses, you have to be a little more intentional in your grazing management. And people often talk about rest. And rest is very important for grasses. But I'm going to go all, heretic heretical here, that I really don't care about rest when it comes to native grasses. And some of your, folks that are trained in, you know, forages and and rain science, probably their heads blowing up right now.
00:15:55:07 - 00:16:22:02
Unknown
But what I'm going to tell you is it's all about leaf surface area. Right? And so I could graze a native grass pasture and all season long never give it a day's rest. Cattle are out there every single day. The reason I can get away with that is I've stocked it such that I'm always leaving enough leaf surface area out there to keep those plants vigorous and productive and feeding themselves, and not just the cattle.
00:16:22:12 - 00:16:50:09
Unknown
On the other hand, if I'm going to graze and really aggressively and really knock it down, I have to give it a rest. And here's a fun little study from the 1950s, a guy named John Kreider did this study. And what he did is he foliated a bunch of plants and monitored their root development, the face of that defoliation, and basically what he found out is as long as you don't remove more than 50% of the leaf surface area, the root growth never changes.
00:16:50:09 - 00:17:10:09
Unknown
It never slows down. So the point is, if in your herbicide it's take half leaf, half, we can never really do that very precisely in any given year and season. It's it's not, you know, perfect science. But the point is if you're leaving lots of leaf surface area out there, that plant is going to stay just as vigorous as it pleases.
00:17:10:09 - 00:17:32:02
Unknown
And you can do that for decades. On the other hand, low grade, really close. You either have to give it a rest or you're going to see it disappear. So if you take a bluestem pasture and you graze it as if it was, orchard grass, for example, and graze it down a three, four inch canopy, all season long, I promise you, you will get rid of that bluestem.
00:17:32:04 - 00:17:53:15
Unknown
It may take a couple seasons to do it, but you will get rid of it. On the other hand, if you maintain a and your wildlife friends will really love this. But in our research, if I maintain a, say, 15 to 18 inch canopy on that native grass sward, I can graze it much of the season at that height, and that may be a little on the low side.
00:17:53:15 - 00:18:14:06
Unknown
Maybe I need to be closer to 20in, but I can leave the cattle out there as long as my stocking rate lets me do that. And that taller canopy those grasses can put up with all summer. And in number two, what we find is that that canopy height is really good for things like our quail and our grassland birds, which are, you know, their populations are crashing right to left, so.
00:18:14:07 - 00:18:58:07
Unknown
Right. That's an option. But back to your point is it's about leaf surface area. And if you don't respect that then you need to start looking at that. Rest. Wow. That was well that brings up some important and. Well that brings up some important considered like considerations too. Nicholas, I don't know if you were you were thinking of this as well, but, even in just mowing guidelines for, you know, a new prairie planting, you know, you want to be careful not to, be cutting good stuff off below that growth point and, you know, possibly, you know, either really setting that plant back or maybe even killing it,
00:18:58:09 - 00:19:26:13
Unknown
completely. If it's a young enough plant. So, yeah, but I do some more personal research into that, you know, just, on the that growth point height and what's best practice. Do you have a good general, like, length to to leave natives out for mowing? Yeah. We always recommend an eight inch mowing height. And a lot of people look at me funny when I say that and say, hey, my mower doesn't cut that high.
00:19:26:14 - 00:19:47:05
Unknown
Well, the wrong it does cut that. There's. And we've got a publication at our website, here at UT, our center for Native Grasslands. We got scads of publications in there, but one of them specifically addresses mowing height, and there's about a half dozen different tricks in there you can use depending on what kind of mower configuration you have to raise that mower up.
00:19:47:07 - 00:20:05:16
Unknown
And I will say this to, you know, native grass as well. I just explained to you why they're vulnerable to overgrazing. The flip side of that is they're really pretty darn resilient. You can graze native grasses into the dirt if you want to. The problem is that you cannot continue to do that. Right. So we'll see you out there in the spring of the year.
00:20:05:16 - 00:20:20:09
Unknown
And you turn loose a bunch of, cattle into a native grass pasture, and you get busy or, you know, you decide to go to the beach and forget that you left the gate open or, you know, whatever situation you want to create in your mind there. And you come back three weeks later and it's not down to the dirt.
00:20:20:15 - 00:20:40:23
Unknown
It's not time to cry. That's where this wrestling comes in. And you pull the animals out of there and you give it rest. So abuse of grazing one of these grasses will recover from. They need a longer rest period, but they'll recover. Same thing with mowing. Eight inches is much better because at eight inches you're going to generally always be above the growing point.
00:20:41:01 - 00:21:04:05
Unknown
And another key thing with native grasses, they make exceptionally good hay. Even switchgrass, which I've heard a lot cost as a hay crop. But the people who considers a hay crop generally have cut it when they see seed heads. People who said, man, that's a really good hay have generally cut it when it's still very vegetative. So the earlier in the year you look at that plant, the lower that growing point is.
00:21:04:07 - 00:21:23:00
Unknown
So an eight inch cutting height. And and of course I got to think about your growing season is different than ours. But if that switchgrass is hip high, let's say, and you don't see a single seed head anywhere, we're probably in the early boot stage at that point. Okay. Just to use a term of that, that a lot of pay farmers might recognize.
00:21:23:02 - 00:21:40:01
Unknown
But if we're in an early boot stage and we cut that, we might be able to get away with a four inch cutting and not take out the, there might be a little lobe. We might not take out the growing point the later our weight, the higher that growing point, the greater the recovery time that grass has to have.
00:21:40:03 - 00:21:59:04
Unknown
And so with that growing point, if it's removed, what you have to recognize is you've probably removed almost all the leaf surface area. So now I've got a plan that has no leaves to conduct photosynthesis. It can't create any carbohydrate from itself or itself. So what does it do? Well, it goes to the savings account, right? The roots.
00:21:59:09 - 00:22:25:02
Unknown
And it grabs what it needs to to first before it can even put a leaf out. It needs a new growing point and then it can start to put leaves out. Well, some research at University of Nebraska by Bruce Anderson. His colleagues few years back demonstrated that, there's about, I've forgotten. Now, I'll lie to you either way I go, but about a 4 to 6 week recovery cycle, that doesn't mean it's not growing at all there and there.
00:22:25:02 - 00:22:50:14
Unknown
But before it catches back up. And that's based on the root reserves. And so you're really setting yourself back every time you do that. Now, you mentioned young plants in that question. And we never recommend taking a harvest in the seedling year. We want that plant to be able to drive all that energy and all that growth into what we hope will ultimately be in y'all's part of the world, six, eight, maybe ten foot deep root systems.
00:22:50:16 - 00:23:10:07
Unknown
You know, if we got some shallow soil somewhere here and in a place like Tennessee, you know, maybe we only got 4 in 4 feet of soil. But the point is, we want those deep roots to be able to fully develop. And so during that seedling year, we try to avoid defoliation. But once it's a second year plan, it's going to be able to withstand that defoliation.
00:23:10:07 - 00:23:29:07
Unknown
But again, in those guidelines at eight inch cutting height that we talk about. Yeah, that's really good information. What about yeah. Thank you. What about, native forbs? What do you see? They have a role to play. Now, something I will add is that we have a straight, big bluestem field, so that we can harvest it.
00:23:29:07 - 00:23:45:14
Unknown
We can seed off of it. We've had one since about the time that I was born. And right now it doesn't produce any seed. We basically still have it because we haven't had a chance to rip it up yet. It is in the field. Not only does it not produce seed, so no big bluestem can do that. After a while it is yellow is could be.
00:23:45:17 - 00:24:03:00
Unknown
So it needs either fertilizer or it needs to be ripped up. Need some nitrogen? Something and and so that's one aspect. Are the Forbes going to help keep this to be a healthier thing. But then also, you know, the the manure that's dropped on there would I feel like would have something to do. I'm speaking out of my wheelhouse.
00:24:03:00 - 00:24:24:17
Unknown
So I'm just adding some points to what do you what are your thoughts on, the Forbes and if you know anything about the nutrition that they add to the the grazers? Yeah. We've just, wrapped up a bunch of studies looking at putting native forbs into native grass pastures. And I think it's a great idea just to there's a couple considerations.
00:24:24:19 - 00:24:40:08
Unknown
So what we did is some of those forbs can be very expensive. And your seed producers understand you're not trying to charge somebody extra. It's that you got a field that produces 40 pounds of seed per acre. I don't know if that's the right number for any of the forms. That's that's pretty good. That's a pretty good guess.
00:24:40:10 - 00:25:07:02
Unknown
Yeah. And sometimes that will work and maybe it'll that's a good year. And they don't necessarily every year there's some variability. And so by the time you put the time and effort into combine and clean and you can't. So let's eat for $2 a pound. It's not even an option right. Unless you're a charity business. Right. But what we do have screened forbs for you know, what recommendations were out there for wildlife and pasture.
00:25:07:02 - 00:25:30:23
Unknown
So we we looked at all different, you know, folks that were advocating for particular forbs. And we looked at what were less expensive and we also looked at what we thought were a massive pick, tolerant, you know, so we had sort of an advantage to control non-native species and get these native species established anywhere we thrown. That's a that's, plateau.
00:25:30:23 - 00:25:51:16
Unknown
Right. Come trade name. That's correct. It's also sold as panoramic. I don't, I don't know if there's anybody else now selling it, but it's off, patent. So it's become relatively cheap. But anyway, so we looked at that. We've put as many as 20 different forb species out there. And what I will tell you, there's a number of them, at least in our environment.
00:25:51:16 - 00:26:18:23
Unknown
We've had very little success in getting them established in a pasture setting. Now, you know, again. So so Illinois bundle flower comes to mind. I love that plan. It's a good forge. We we've played around with it, putting it in pastures. It just doesn't take in our environment. And maybe it does really well. And you know, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, what have you, but there's about 6 or 8 species that we have seen consistent, reliable establishment number one.
00:26:19:01 - 00:26:40:17
Unknown
And number two, good persistence in a pasture setting. Right. So if if we can plan it, we get a great stand that it's gone the next year. That's a pretty good little investment for a farmer to, to have it disappear so quickly. And the third criteria we really concerned about is does it become a pest. Right. So one of the things we put out there, there's there's a lot of recommendations around it.
00:26:40:17 - 00:27:00:13
Unknown
And I'm not against the idea at all. But as Million Sunflower you know beautiful plant productive lot of volume and cattle graze it. But it can get pretty wooly. And most farmers I know, if they see a eight foot tall Maximilian sunflower in their pasture, they're going to start to get concerned. So yeah, on the one hand, we want it to persist.
00:27:00:13 - 00:27:17:10
Unknown
On the other hand, we don't want it to become what is perceived as a pest. And we also want to know that cattle are benefiting from them and grazing them. So I may not be able to tick off that whole list for you, but there's there's about a half dozen or so species that I think make perfect sense in a pasture.
00:27:17:11 - 00:27:40:18
Unknown
We also went to the trouble to harvest a bunch of those and send it off to, wet chemistry lab, because the IRS at this point hasn't caught up to the form nutrition, right? We can't use an IRS. We need a better data set yet. Anyway, we've sent them off to wet chemistry. And what we wound up seeing is that relative to grasses, they have very low fibers.
00:27:40:18 - 00:28:06:00
Unknown
Right. And it that sort of makes sense. So very good digestibility, very good intake. Consumption for based on in DfE and the crude protein. The way we ended up doing this is we had very small sample sizes for the wet chemistry lab, and we wound up having to take harvests from all through the summer, which we did all purpose periodically harvesting and lump them together.
00:28:06:00 - 00:28:27:02
Unknown
So we had stuff that was senescent, you know, almost brown. We had stuff that was very vegetated at all points in between and just lumped it all together. And yet we still got and again, I, I can't remember the exact figures. It's not a publication that's out there right now I could direct you all to. But our crude protein levels, as I recall, were sort of 15 to 20%.
00:28:27:10 - 00:28:45:13
Unknown
In some cases higher. And of course, cattle are selective grazers, right? They're not necessarily going to go gray. Something brown when something green and tender is right next door. So I think the effective crude protein right is probably going to be in the mid 20s if what they're eating. So the point is they're good. Yeah that's that's very good.
00:28:45:17 - 00:29:13:15
Unknown
That's okay. What's alfalfa. Oh well yeah. And so you know we've got these good protein levels. We have low fiber levels which means good digestibility and good energy. So they're perfectly good forages. And what we saw and it really depends on the management of your pasture. But if you have an appropriate stocking rate and we talked about that a little bit to the cattle are going to readily graze most of these species.
00:29:13:17 - 00:29:43:15
Unknown
And interestingly enough, it's a one off study. But it was a sound study. I mean, it had replication was good, good research, but I usually don't go to the bank off of a single research project. Right now, I usually like see an accumulation of several studies to kind of begin to feel real confident about those results. But I do know in that one study, we actually saw a modest advantage and rate of gain on our cattle, where we had enriched the pasture with a whole fistful of our native forbs relative to those that were just straight grass.
00:29:43:15 - 00:30:04:08
Unknown
Wow. If our if our pencil whipped it, though, which we'll try to do at some point, my concern is that the cost of that forbs seed and effort to put it in. You know, if I go to my economist, they're going to make me put the cost of running that drill across the field. Right. And, you know, drill rental know that they don't let me get away with anything there.
00:30:04:08 - 00:30:29:17
Unknown
They know where the costs are. So and they charge me for my labor, so to speak. Right. It's just typical economic analysis that I economists do. But if I combine those inputs, see cost and the others, I wind up that modest rate of gain that that I've picked up better animal performance probably doesn't pencil out. But if you've got other goals and objectives you like, the beauty of it.
00:30:29:17 - 00:30:47:18
Unknown
You know you want to help pollinators, you want to help wildlife, all these other things that maybe aren't directly putting a paycheck in your pocket. The point is, this is you can do it and not hurt yourself in terms of animal performance. And that's, I think, an important finding. Well, and something I want to add real quick is, that here.
00:30:47:18 - 00:31:09:15
Unknown
And that makes total sense. I'm not sure what forbs you're speaking of, but if there's some of them, that and I want to get into that. But if there's some of them that I'm thinking of, I, I know firsthand because we actually move quite a bit of seed in the southeast and a lot of times I'll go through other seed producers because I like to keep it closer to, you know, and so we'll we'll help get them in, contact or we'll help.
00:31:11:10 - 00:31:34:17
Unknown
We'll help get them the right mix and then get it from a seed producer close to them. Seed producers in the southeast are extremely limited compared to the Midwest, and that's nothing against them. They're just. They're. A lot of the industry started later, and the, there's less companies that do it. And so here in the Midwest, I'm willing to bet and actually know this, I know this for sure.
00:31:34:17 - 00:32:08:19
Unknown
Big bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass, maybe some little bluestem, and some other species. Just those grasses are about 10% more expensive than a, quote unquote cheap, mix that adds forbs like those same species. Plus black eyed Susan, purple prairie clover, white prairie clover, Illinois bundle flower. Miller sunflower, partridge pea. Yeah. There's a couple others that here in the Midwest where actually they're produced in such great number we can it's the, it's almost marginal.
00:32:08:19 - 00:32:26:21
Unknown
It's not quite. It probably is about a 10% increase, but it's not much. And I'm curious, what are some of those forbs? Because those, that matters greatly if you say, yep, you need candida anemone in there, well, then you just tripled your price of the mix. That's, you know, that's different. But, I'm curious, what does to you.
00:32:26:23 - 00:32:52:00
Unknown
Yeah. The ones and I'm going off memory here. I haven't looked at that recently, so I may miss a few, but, and and this is in no particular order of importance, but, Lance leaf, Black-Eyed Susan, they're both of those. Start early, start fast and start big, right? Yeah. And, Lance Leaf's not a warm season per se, but nevertheless it's, it's a great, pollinator plant and cattle eat it and you know, it works.
00:32:52:16 - 00:33:10:15
Unknown
Black-Eyed Susan now black eyed Susan plays out after a few years. And if it was dry burn in your pasture, what we saw that really gives it a shot in a short sun brings it back into play. Oh, purple prairie glow. Purple clover, purple comb flower. Yeah. There's a it can be very good for upright.
00:33:11:08 - 00:33:34:20
Unknown
Prairie comb flower is another real good choice. Oxy is a very good choice. In terms of legumes, we like partage pea, but in a pasture setting, at least in our experience, hasn't done a real good job of reseeding being an annual. Even though as a rule, it's a very good receiver. Yeah. But, but I like partage p I would still include it in there.
00:33:35:03 - 00:33:53:13
Unknown
I mentioned Illinois bundle flower again in our environment, we haven't had real good success in getting it. Established the the prairie clovers, purple and white. Same thing we just did. But we keep throwing the seed out there and keep not seeing anything. And maybe one day, maybe it's hard seed or. But we're just not seeing it.
00:33:53:22 - 00:34:20:02
Unknown
But the legume that we really, really are falling in love with and cattle are nuts about is your, help me y'all, cut plant. There's modems. Oh, picture foils, picture four wheels. Yeah. And so they do well in a pasture that they're not a problem. Cattle eat the stew out of them. And of course, wildlife, you know, well, you know, that's, steak dinner for a while.
00:34:20:04 - 00:34:46:07
Unknown
So, I really like to see that as modems, and. But the people I have to create a picture because of the, you know, that, Velcro. That's. Yeah. Sticks. Well, if you're bird hunter, though, you're happy to have that on your britches. It means something good. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Now, we have put cut plant and Maximilian, and it takes a couple of years for them to really express themselves in those pasture settings.
00:34:46:07 - 00:35:08:11
Unknown
Cattle definitely eat them. I like them. I'd like to have them out there. There. From a standpoint of contributing tonnage to the stands, obviously they're they're really strong, but they have a propensity that if you're stocking isn't such that cattle catch them kind of early and hit them pretty good, they're going to get big and wooly. And again, I'm just speaking for the cattlemen.
00:35:08:11 - 00:35:31:10
Unknown
I know in the the South, lower Midwest is, you know, if some of those things get big and ugly and they be stressed out over them. Right. But again, a good manager, I think you could have both out there. I think that would play a role. And I keep mentioning the management. So let me well I don't know maybe maybe we need to talk about something else.
00:35:31:10 - 00:35:56:14
Unknown
But let me talk a little bit about the management with forbs. So yeah, for native grasses foliation is really really important. I mentioned that we can't constantly keep them too short to feed leaves. And on the other hand, if we let them get away from us, they can get pretty wooly and Stemi and lower digestibility and, you know, and so everybody worries about overgrazing with native grass pasture.
00:35:56:14 - 00:36:14:21
Unknown
So says here's heretical point number two for the morning. I think under grazing is a bigger problem than are grazing. And what I'll show you that. Well, because what we see with under grazing and this is true in a fescue pasture as it is in the native grass pasture, but will cattle are going to do if they got a lot more forage than they need?
00:36:14:21 - 00:36:38:02
Unknown
In other words, it's under stock. What they're going to do is they're going to go after the things they prefer, number one. And then because they're eating parts of the pasture, other parts of the pasture are going to mature and get away from them. Right? So if I have an under stock pasture that has Maximillian in it, and they don't get around to that corner of the pasture, there's going to be 12ft tall Maximilian out there.
00:36:38:04 - 00:36:59:00
Unknown
And once they've started this pattern, cattle always want younger vegetation because it always has higher digestibility and higher protein. So what they're going to do is they're going to go in there and they're going to return to the same patches within that pasture that they grazed previously. Because when they grazed that they set it back and they're just going to be on a rotation.
00:36:59:06 - 00:37:17:12
Unknown
What what may only be 30% of the pasture where in out those spots and basically killing that grass. And what they end up doing is my terminology for it is they're eating the whole of the pasture. Right. And once those perennials are weakened enough, they may not blink out, but they're opening the door for every manner of competition.
00:37:17:14 - 00:37:36:02
Unknown
And can't you brought up earlier, Brome, if you want to find a brome patch up at Charles latitude and a native pasture, it's probably going to be where a you had very poor establishment success, probably because of a patch of weeds in that part of the pasture. Or just as likely is because it was what we might call a grazing camp.
00:37:36:02 - 00:37:57:14
Unknown
Right. So the animals just focused on that and were on the. And so if you want to have good performance from your forbs, you want relatively, heavy stocking. And I mentioned earlier that you can leave animals in there all summer long. I don't recommend that normally, because you'd have to have your stocking pretty accurate to make that work.
00:37:57:16 - 00:38:21:17
Unknown
So I really normally recommend rotational grazing. Anyway. Right. And so that good rotational grazing where you're never letting that canopy get below about 15 16in and never taller than about 30in again, take half leave. That is a really good system. And if you have enough grazing pressure to take that down, it's going to keep some of those wooly or forbs from getting away from you.
00:38:21:22 - 00:38:41:18
Unknown
And you get good utilization of the forms. And the neat thing, and one of the things we wanted to see is we get plenty of blooms still out there, even in the presence of cattle. Now, if we have really heavy stocking and they're just really knocking everything down, then very few of those forms get to successfully flower and feed.
00:38:41:20 - 00:39:03:21
Unknown
But if we've kind of that intermediate range that I've been talking about, I can have blooms all through that pasture, cattle, all that pasture and birds all through that pasture. So somewhere and always use this analogy to driving down the road. And I know some of those little section gravel road you all got up there. Yeah. There's a ditch on the right side of the road that you don't want to go into on a snowy day, but you know what?
00:39:03:23 - 00:39:28:05
Unknown
The ditch that's on the other side of the road, you don't want to go into it either. Right? So yeah, the old Jim keeping it between the ditch, I mean, that's what we're talking about. Not not too heavy, not too light. And so managing forbs in a pasture setting, you don't need to do anything for road to, to keep the Forbes around other than not overgrazing it and to kind of keep them from taking over, you need to not under graze it.
00:39:28:07 - 00:39:52:23
Unknown
So kind of in the middle is, is where you're going to get the most consistent performance and long term viability of that entire plant community. That is. Yeah. That's right. That's, that's great advice. I have a soever species specific question here for you. Well, we were kind of on that. One of the things Nicholas pointed out to me one time when we were driving down the the road, traveled between podcast.
00:39:53:11 - 00:40:21:23
Unknown
He's like, man, have you noticed? And all these pastures, like, just how much hoary vervain there is? It just seems like the cows are avoiding it, you know, like they're everything else is grazed around it. But you'll see the all these, all these patches of hoary vervain. First of all, is Nicholas's observation scientifically correct? And, if so, what is it about hoary vervain that just seems to not be, palatable to the grazers?
00:40:21:23 - 00:40:46:23
Unknown
Yeah. I'm not familiar with that particular species. I'm familiar. Vervain more generally. And so I don't know that I've seen it in a pasture setting and also might be a lot more prevalent at y'all's latitude than it is here. But there are species like that to cattle just avoid. And, you know, when we get into the palatability question, a lot of times it's kind of hard to to put our finger on.
00:40:46:23 - 00:41:10:09
Unknown
We don't really know why cattle will eat this and not eat that. There's a species here and I don't know how common it is up y'all's way, but prickly lettuce? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So you feel the underside of the leaf has got that, that little, thorns as just like a thistle. Yeah, yeah, almost like a thistle. The first thing they'll do if they find prickly lettuce on a pastures, go eat it.
00:41:10:11 - 00:41:36:13
Unknown
And you like, So. Yeah. So why there is this, you know, for instance, big bluestem. They will eat it preferentially to just about any other warm season grass on, though, with one obvious exception. And the question is why? And, you know, we really don't know in terms of, you know, chemical constituents or, you know, what they taste or we've even speculated some or maybe maybe it's a mouthfeel, right?
00:41:36:13 - 00:41:53:04
Unknown
I mean, you get, you know, kind of a rough leaf and, you know, maybe they avoid that. But again, cattle eat some rough things at times. You know, it's like it's like putting potato chips. It's like putting potato chips on your sandwich. It's all about texture sometimes. There you go. So we really don't understand. At least I don't understand.
00:41:53:04 - 00:42:12:08
Unknown
There may be some research or some way or others that feel like it's all that puzzle, but but my feeling is that there's very real preference, but we can't always explain it. Yeah. Yeah. So you know I mentioned increases and decreases and Nicholas the vervain sounds to me like it. Sure enough an increase it. Right. It's something they have.
00:42:12:08 - 00:42:32:15
Unknown
They eat everything else. Well my understanding of vervain. You see it a lot on the side of roads is that it is really good. It doesn't like competition, but it can grow out of a rock. So if you've got a bunch of big loads around it, it won't compete it out. But yeah, if you have disturbance in the big blue stems taken out, it'll it'll, persevere.
00:42:32:17 - 00:42:58:22
Unknown
Okay. So, Doctor Kaiser, we've got about 20 more minutes real quick, and I, I got one I got one more key question here, Nicholas, while we're talking about some of this, concern, of course, for, for, cattlemen is bloating. And a lot of the species we, we watch, especially those those plateau, compatible species. Tend to be legumes.
00:42:59:00 - 00:43:32:15
Unknown
Right. And is there, is there a fear of when introducing forbs, specifically legumes, to, a pasture mix? Is there a concern of bloating? Simply, no. These species, I've never seen in any documentation that said that that's an issue. And again, a lot of these sunflowers, for instance, are, aren't don't have that problem. And the legumes we put in the meridians and, part of species don't produce enough volume of forage.
00:43:32:16 - 00:44:03:04
Unknown
On the one hand, you know, before mass standpoint, this is true in native prairies all across the Great Plains in the southeast is, you know, some of the research there, cons of prairie with K-State. Our native grasslands were typically 90% biomass was or north of that was, C4 grasses are warm season grasses. Forbs. Even though they might make up a large number of the individual plants out there, never make up a large proportion of the biomass.
00:44:03:10 - 00:44:24:01
Unknown
Those are the kind of problem we run into a lot of clovers where they become very abundant. You know, you have that kind of spring where just a big flush of that clover. That can be an issue, but not not with these native species. Would, would you ever add would you ever add medium red clover to warm season grasses?
00:44:24:05 - 00:44:46:13
Unknown
If you say, hey, I'm not going to do the other forbs, I want to guarantee it's, its ability, its success in the field. Would you ever do that? In short, yes, but with a little asterisk next to it. So we did a study a few years ago where we did exactly. That is, we on purpose introduced red clover.
00:44:46:15 - 00:45:02:15
Unknown
And in that study we want to make sure we had red clover. So for four years running every March we went out there and or maybe this February in our our world dropped the drill in the ground and put another, you know, 4 or 5, 6 pounds I can't remember seeing right off. And let's just call it 5 pounds of medium right clover in there.
00:45:02:15 - 00:45:19:00
Unknown
Right. And you know, clover and I'm sure you all see the same thing up there. It kind of can you know, you can have what I'll call a clover spring. You know we're just boom there's clover everywhere and you have years where you don't see a lot of clover I don't think has a lot to do with, you know, have temperature and moisture come together that spring.
00:45:19:02 - 00:45:41:14
Unknown
But it red clover can be compatible with these natives. But keep in mind that it's going to break dormancy well in front again 4 to 6 weeks in front of the natives. And if you have one of those Clover springs. And during our study we saw one of these where that field look like 100% stand of red clover two feet tall and not a sprig of native grafted.
00:45:41:17 - 00:46:03:05
Unknown
It's to be seen. And we got the. It's not statistically valid to say this, but we saw really good gain coming off that paddock that here and you know the clover. But it really slowed down the growth of the warm season perennial that goes back. And we talked about earlier mixing cool seasons in warm seasons if you get the right spring for those cool seasons.
00:46:03:05 - 00:46:36:21
Unknown
So the Kentucky bluegrass has been mentioned. It's not a native species. But it's an annual or there's an annual bluegrass. But that in either way, where you have heavy grazing in a native grass pasture, those blue grasses will come on and in the spring can can completely overtop the canopy. One of the reasons that folks figured out to burn native grass asters years ago is it removes that blanket that keeps the the native warm seasons asleep for an extra week or two or 3 or 4 in the spring.
00:46:36:21 - 00:47:01:17
Unknown
Right? That's what you're doing. So red clover can have that exact same effect in the spring depending on the year. The other funny thing we noticed is that green compared to a standard, fertilizer rate of 60 units per acre, then there was no advantage to having the red clover out there. Iowa State did a study years ago.
00:47:01:21 - 00:47:24:15
Unknown
I wish I could call the name of the fellow that, was it was. Can somebody who's retired now and think he made and passed away, but he does a lot of neat research on switchgrass. And they saw the same thing when you put a cool season legume with a warm season perennial, depending on how good your establishment of the legume is, depending on the spring, the winter, it can be a real competitive drag.
00:47:24:17 - 00:47:47:08
Unknown
So my point is this is that red clover can fit, but you have to be watching it to make sure it doesn't kick your butt and become a competitive drag on your warm season. But it what do you do if it does nitrogen? It didn't work for. Yeah. So the problem is if it does, you know what one idea would be to go in there and graze it all off.
00:47:47:08 - 00:48:01:20
Unknown
But you asked about bloat earlier. Well, if you've gotten enough that makes you concerned about it and you want to graze it off, then you may have a bloat problem, but you could still use grazing depending on the scale your pasture. And, you know, just do some limit grazing, so to speak. Return them in there for a couple hours.
00:48:01:20 - 00:48:26:04
Unknown
Liam, hammer some or throw some dry hay. And with them, you know, to help balance that out. So some of the things you would normally do to try to check bloat. But so the problem is red clover could add something. But another thing that we noticed is, you know, our rates of gain on native grasses in the first 6 to 8 weeks of the spring grazing season are gaudy, right?
00:48:26:07 - 00:48:52:00
Unknown
They're crowding 3 pounds a day. It's almost like feeding them silage. And, at that time of year, clovers aren't necessarily going to add that much because that already high rate of gain. And as the summer goes on, red clover tends to become less competitive because, you know, the heat and the maybe drier weather. And so the native grass animal performance also starts to drop off.
00:48:52:00 - 00:49:08:13
Unknown
And so or maybe you could benefit from having a legume, is a time of year when a red clover is really not there to help you. So it helps you and you don't really need to help. And it's not around when you do need help, right? So I'm not a huge advocate of putting it in there, but it can work.
00:49:09:03 - 00:49:35:03
Unknown
One thing we haven't talked about is eastern gamma grass, which can be very clumpy stands and ironwood, and it breaks dormancy earlier than all the other natives. And so if I was growing eastern gamma grass, I wouldn't hesitate to put, red clover in there. Switchgrass a little more aggressive, a little earlier dormancy breaking. So when switchgrass would be a little less concerned about having a red clover, but, you know, blue stems in the grass later dormancy.
00:49:35:03 - 00:49:54:18
Unknown
Brave, little more sensitive to competition. So kind of a nuanced answer, but yes, you can do it. But look at the conditions and what you're going to do it. I love it, I love it. It's it's a realistic view on on farming. And every farm even two miles apart can be can be totally different. I do have one more technical question.
00:49:54:18 - 00:50:26:10
Unknown
And and I want to get to a big picture question because I think you've got great views on that. But I'm totally ignorant on this and I've had this question a bunch. How do you know specifically with warm season grasses, when your, your cattle or your grazers are over it? Now, I know that it's going to go different months and different parts of the country, but is there a part of the plant or a stage of the plant where you can where you can safely say like, yeah, grazers are probably done with this about now?
00:50:26:12 - 00:50:48:19
Unknown
Yeah. Well, I'm going to go back to what I mentioned earlier, leaf surface area. So what we've seen in some of our studies, we do something that you don't do on the farm, but we do it science because it's a great idea in science and a bad idea on the farm. But it's called fake grazing. And so if you ever seen these growth curves for grasses, one of the ways we can establish those is we've put in take grazing.
00:50:48:19 - 00:51:08:00
Unknown
Right. And so what we do is we know the canopy that we're trying to maintain in that pasture. Right. So I've used some figures with y'all. Let's say I'm trying to maintain an 18 inch canopy. Right. So what I do is once a week I go grab some more steers from my research herd, and I pump them in there of that canopy starting to float up above there.
00:51:08:02 - 00:51:34:14
Unknown
Or if I'm noticing there's a downward trend in that canopy, I pull them out. And so what I can do is on a weekly basis, I can document my carrying capacity all through the grazing season. Now we have done that. What we tend to do by the latter part of the grazing season on into August is that pasture looks pretty ratty at that point, because even though we've tried to maintain a consistent canopy, you know, reality overtakes us, right?
00:51:34:14 - 00:51:54:18
Unknown
And so we can kind of be regular and tends to be kind of stingy. You know, depending on the species. And so, I mentioned those 3 pounds, a day gain rates that we see or nearly 3 pounds, 2.8, 2.9 that we see early in the season in that put take grazing environment, which is where that data comes from.
00:51:54:18 - 00:52:25:23
Unknown
I just mentioned, by the time we get into August, we're down below a pound per day. 0.8 is what we were getting. Wow. So you're really not doing much in terms of animal performance in August. But I will tell you this, if you're using that, that kind of season long grazing approach. But at that point in the year and I'm going to use fescue as a framework because as our part of the world, if I were to go out on the fescue or Bermuda grass in August, I'm not even going to do 0.8, right?
00:52:25:23 - 00:52:42:09
Unknown
Wow. And in the case of fescue, if I'm setting it up for a fall stockpile or I'm just trying to rest it because it's already stressed by drought or heat, I don't really need to be on it. And so really, as bad as 0.8 sounds, it may be the best date in town and the grass can still withstand it.
00:52:42:09 - 00:53:10:18
Unknown
You're not hurting the grass. So the real answer to that, Nicholas, would be when the, grass doesn't have enough leaf surface area, which, if it's really uniformly grazed, it's too short. But use your eyeball, right. You can have four foot tall switch grass or there's a stem because of how you grazed it. They're refusing, but they've strip most of the leaves off it because that's what they'll start to do if it's to mature is, that they'll start stripping leaves.
00:53:10:20 - 00:53:34:04
Unknown
So but but I will say it again. Management, management management. Right. Canopy. So we also did a study where we grazed fairly aggressively early in the year and then lightened up the stocking for the second half of the summer. So a real simple adjustment. And we actually saw rates of gain in that second half of the summer because we had hit it kind of hard, kept it vegetative.
00:53:34:06 - 00:54:04:15
Unknown
Then we lightened up the stocking. We've seen this by accident, but this was also by design in this particular case. And we see that grass start to come back real strong. And during July and August and that particular study, we were still getting rates of gain at 1.8 pounds a day, which again, and that's why I'm an advocate of rotational grazing, is I can set up a pasture to be great forage in August and even September by when I last grazed it and was able to keep it vegetative.
00:54:04:15 - 00:54:26:00
Unknown
And how much rest I've given it since then. So if I know I want to have some good forage in August, it's real simple. Graze it really hard in late June or early July and and give it about 3 or 4 weeks of rest. And then you can have very good forage in August. So again I would look at the plant but and I would look at my overall management system of what's my alternative at that point.
00:54:26:02 - 00:54:47:04
Unknown
And bottom line to me, Nicholas, is let's not hurt the perennial. So if you sit in a threshold where leaf surface area has kind of disappeared, let's back away from it, man. That's that's incredible. That's incredible advice and and, I will be, documenting this podcast because I get a lot of questions on, native grassland pasture.
00:54:47:04 - 00:55:08:09
Unknown
And I just only know what people tell me. And now, they're all going to know what you tell them. I'm going to send this to a bunch of people. So I've been really grateful. But you've obviously got a big brain. You've that you've used it to study things, but you've also used it to speak into the big picture of how we do agriculture and, and how our, as you describe it, are working.
00:55:08:09 - 00:55:32:10
Unknown
Land can work for more than just economic productivity, but we can actually check a lot of boxes together. I'm curious, as you're painting, a picture of the future, let's pretend that for whatever reason, you get to be dictator of the United States and you get to start changing how, how agriculture, farming and, pasture and grazing happens.
00:55:32:18 - 00:55:53:22
Unknown
What what what kind of things are you changing? What what are some big picture, things you'd like to see different? Well, I guess one thing I would like to see is, and and I'm going to just mostly speak to, to pasture and range rather than the road crop systems. But one thing I would like to see is an increased reliance on native species.
00:55:53:22 - 00:56:14:15
Unknown
Right. I'd like to see the, the, the underlying thing that drives me, Nicholas, is the principle of stewardship. Right. And so, you know, we live in an amazing world that even the smartest of us, the most studied of us really, if we're really honest about it, only understand in a, you know, through a glass, dimly, as the Good Book says.
00:56:14:15 - 00:56:37:15
Unknown
Right. We just got this fingernail hanging on, understanding what's going on. A lot of people are talking about soil health these days and focusing on, on, the soil biology. With all due respect to the people that study that I think we're like four year olds at this point in terms of our understanding of those systems. You know, we get some general idea of what we don't understand anyway.
00:56:37:15 - 00:57:00:06
Unknown
So to my way of thinking, I would love to see a big increase in the reliance on native species and forage systems, because I think it gives us broader stewardship of this incredible creation that we've been given to take care of. Right. And, you know, in terms of water quality, in terms of soil health, organic matter, resilience to droughts and the other side of it.
00:57:00:06 - 00:57:18:21
Unknown
And I guess I've always kind of been a believer in the canary in the coal mine theory. And, I realize that a species called a grasshopper sparrow, we don't own it, and most people don't even know what the heck it is. And even if they saw it, they probably still wouldn't know what it was. But I kind of feel like we need to keep those pieces, parts of the system.
00:57:18:21 - 00:57:37:21
Unknown
Right? You know, I think when a lot of these species are disappearing on us is telling us something, right? Yeah. And so, you know, we grow the heck out of we eat in this country, we go the heck out of soybeans. Neither one of them native, right? I mean, there's millions and millions of acres of those. They're not native to North America.
00:57:37:23 - 00:57:54:12
Unknown
But I've always kind of going back to our grasslands and sort of. Wait a minute, the good Lord planted bluestem, for example, here. Maybe it's a good tool for us. Another way to look at it, too, is, you know, if you row in a boat, which not too many people do anymore. When I was a kid, we had row boats.
00:57:54:12 - 00:58:16:00
Unknown
But, you know, you go to row across the pond, you got two hours. And so in the world of, forages, you know, we got, warm season grass and we got a cool season grass. Right? But, I mean, we divide the world up that easily. Why not use both or worse? You know, why are you trying to ask a cool season grass to do what a warm season grass was designed to do, or vice versa.
00:58:16:02 - 00:58:43:09
Unknown
So, you know, to me, I think that that would be a great step forward in stewardship. And along those lines, you know, our management of our grasslands, you know, I've emphasized how important it is to the outcomes we get in our native pastures. That's just as true for our, introduced grass species. So I think, you know, good stewardship through grazing and a bigger reliance on natives would would go a long way, toward improving things.
00:58:43:11 - 00:59:01:02
Unknown
So, you know, that's something I would love to see happen. Man, I, I love that I that's what I've been. I mean, that's why we're here today is I think, there's been really cool things at CRP, and I don't mean to dog on crp, but we're getting close to Max, to the farmers who want to be in it are in it.
00:59:01:02 - 00:59:28:19
Unknown
And yeah, there will be some variance of a million acres or two across the Midwest over the next while. But but where I see there could be a much bigger difference in and natives is the pasture in the hunting. And I think, both really care. Yeah. And, well, you know, along those lines, you could take a piece of ground wherever you are, and you could get yourself a 300 species mix, if that makes you happy.
00:59:28:19 - 00:59:49:18
Unknown
And you can do all the right things to try and get, you know, native plants back in there. You'd be very particular to this plant, actually, you know, native to Iowa, maybe as needed to Missouri. We're not going to pay attention. You know, Missouri is right. Just just kidding, y'all. Missourians. But look, the point is, if you could, you know, you could get the species mix just, you know, just as fine as you want.
00:59:49:20 - 01:00:10:13
Unknown
But at the end of the day, a grassland in North America is a system where there is fire and there is grazing. That's what you grasslands, grass. I can take you out to central Kansas and show you a forest, because they haven't been burning and they haven't been grazing. Right. Yeah. And so even well, in the plains, woody invasion can be a huge issue.
01:00:10:13 - 01:00:29:17
Unknown
You know, High Plains maybe not so much, but daggone in, in the central and eastern Plains. Absolutely. And so to me, if you look at the total ecology of the system, the thing I got against CRP and I'm like you, I'm not hating on it, but I'm just saying is it's missing the disturbances that make it a viable ecosystem.
01:00:29:19 - 01:00:57:04
Unknown
So I go so far as to say, is the grasslands without either fire or grazing aren't really grasslands. Their garden? Yeah. And so you really want a healthy, functional grassland. Sure. Bison are great, but we're not going to repopulate the Great Plains with bison. But we can repopulate some of these grasslands with Herefords and Angus and Chala and Simmental and your your, breed of choice.
01:00:57:05 - 01:01:27:09
Unknown
So I think what we found when we've looked at the wildlife side of this and grassland birds without grazing, when you just got six foot, ten foot tall native grasses, real dense forbs or not, that's great. Blackbird habitat. Redwing blackbirds love that. That's about it. If you put the cattle in there and you create the disturbance, I can take you to switch grass pastures that are slam full of grassland, birds and insects and all kinds of life because they got the cattle there.
01:01:27:11 - 01:01:51:20
Unknown
And so I'm a huge advocate of that. If you really want the highest and best in terms of native plant communities, give me a freaking cow and I'll give you the logical package that is out there. And so not only do we have tens of millions of acres of pasture in this country that could be converted in part to native, but they have the advantage of having a cow nearby.
01:01:51:22 - 01:02:11:21
Unknown
And a lot of folks in the conservation world don't want to hear about that cow. But the reality is it it is the best tool we have to approximate a buffalo and create the natural disturbance that belongs to the North American grasslands. Yeah. So that's why I'm a big believer in working lions concept is I think it's actually much better than just plant that smile on at it.
01:02:11:23 - 01:02:39:00
Unknown
I have I have no sway in the government, but I know people that listen to this do I would love. Yeah. And lots of other people would love to see cattle introduced to our crp. It's a win win for everybody. Absolutely. Yep, yep. So I think, I think probably the scary thing there is just will it be, controlled enough, you know, will it be.
01:02:39:02 - 01:02:58:17
Unknown
Yeah. Oh, well. Well, the cows just sit there in the crp because then you do start. It starts to become a negative thing at that point. But but I agree, I think, you know, along with very careful guidelines on what has to be, you know, done, you know, how often the cattle have to be rotated and, and.
01:02:58:17 - 01:03:22:15
Unknown
Yeah, appropriate, an appropriate stick to go with the carrot if the those guidelines aren't followed, then, I think that it, it would be, I think it'd be a great thing. Yeah. I, I totally agree. Well, Doctor Kaiser is before we take off, is there anything else you'd like to add? No. I just appreciate the opportunity.
01:03:22:15 - 01:03:44:22
Unknown
And, glad to see you all's interest and passion on this. And I think, you know, what we're doing is something that can benefit a farmer benefit, a bird hunter benefit, a deer hunter benefit. Some of these creatures that we don't even know what they are benefit our soil. Yeah. So, I think it's one of these things where, you know, I hate to say it, but I feel like everybody can win if it's done properly and appropriately.
01:03:44:22 - 01:04:08:18
Unknown
And we're not looking for bad guys or good guys. We're just looking to try and do a better job of stewardship. I love it, I absolutely love it. If they love what they're hearing from you, where can they find more of you or the your your colleagues that are doing the research? Yeah, there's our web page, that I would encourage and probably that is the best sort of, sort of central warehouse for all sorts of things.
01:04:08:20 - 01:04:27:08
Unknown
And, you know, there's book here that we put out. And if somebody really wants to dive deep into this, I don't know if this is going to work, but, yeah, I don't know. What's that background? No, no, that's a book. That's all right. What's the title on it? Can you say the title? Native grass forages for the eastern United States.
01:04:27:10 - 01:05:00:23
Unknown
Okay. Need grass for just for the eastern United. Yeah. This is for somebody who really wants to dig in deep. But it's, tragically, 430 pages. So there's a lot of information in there, and, but that web page, there's videos on there, something we call our name, Graphic College. What's the web page? Yeah. So it's, if you just type in center for native grasslands or, native grasses that UQ dot or dot UQ edu.
01:05:01:01 - 01:05:24:15
Unknown
And there will be a link under the podcast. Everyone listening, we'll have a link for center for Native Grasses. This is what it's called for native grasslands. Grasslands. Okay. Yeah, yeah. There will be a link in the show notes. Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love it. Yeah, well, I would say that, this is exactly what I've been looking for for a while.
01:05:24:15 - 01:05:46:01
Unknown
We've talked to other people who are, experts in grazing, but. But never a professor or someone who studied it, you know, academically. And I'm just having the time of my life. I'm sorry. Everyone listening. If the connectivity issues caused, problem with your being able to. Yeah. I wish this was, in person conversation. Yeah, doc, because else is going on out.
01:05:46:06 - 01:06:07:14
Unknown
I'm actually. I'm. I'm in Tennessee about every other year. Just because the university. Are you familiar with Lee University? Yeah. My half of my family went there and, got some in-laws and stuff out there, so. But, it's right down the road. Yeah, yeah. Well, where are you guys? At the University of Tennessee. UT it's here in Knoxville.
01:06:07:16 - 01:06:28:17
Unknown
Okay, so I live in Knoxville, Iowa, but you live in Knoxville. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, a little bit here. All right. But, ma'am. All right. Well, thanks so much, everyone who is listening. I highly recommend sending this to someone who has pasture. If you can do it without, you know, sounding precocious and and, hey, you need to listen to these guys.
01:06:28:17 - 01:06:50:07
Unknown
But if you know someone who's got pasture, they're open to new ideas. I mean, apparently open to ideas. I would put more pounds on their cows, or native grazing. Otherwise. Something that really helps, spread the conservation word I've said it before. Is is writing a review. If this is your first time here and you love what you're hearing, just give us a little five star, write a little thing.
01:06:50:18 - 01:07:09:20
Unknown
We don't get paid more from that. Doctor Kaiser doesn't get paid more from that. No one here gets paid more for that. Here's what happens with that. Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this. They say, oh, this person likes this. We'll we'll put this podcast in front of other people who like this. And the idea is that the conservation message gets put in front of more people.
01:07:09:20 - 01:07:16:11
Unknown
And that's what we're here for. Because just like Doctor Kaiser, conservation happens. One mind at a time.
