Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is featuring comments from Farm Director KC Sheperd’s visit with Steve Swaffar of the Noble Research Institute about improving pasture conditions.
For the past few years, Swaffar said it has been a challenge to exceed 50 percent good to excellent pasture and range conditions across the Southern Plains. For example, Oklahoma stands at 49 percent good to excellent conditions, according to USDA’s Crop Progress Report released on August 21, 2023.
“The statistics show that from 1982 to 1992, in Oklahoma and across this region, our pasture and range conditions were, for the most part, either fair or poor,” Swaffar said. “Very rarely did we come up above 50 percent of those acres being either in good or excellent condition.”
Looking into the more recent past, from 2011 to 2022 in Oklahoma, Swaffar said there were only two years in that time period where conditions were above 50 percent good to excellent.
“That is a pretty good indication that we are going to be challenged with our pasture and range conditions for the foreseeable future,” Swaffar said. “Understanding how our pastures react in drier conditions and stockpiling forages, and improving soil health to improve those forages is a big part of what I think Oklahoma’s future looks like in our pasture and range.”
One of the biggest issues for most forages, Swaffar said, is the amount of recovery and rest they get.
“Finding some alternatives to get animals off the acres that need rest and recovery is a big part of that,” Swaffar said. “Using crop ground, using some of our timber area, planting forages specifically for grazing into our crop grounds, using some alternative small grains other than wheat graze out, adding some other species like turnups and radishes to our wheat- these are all ways we can defer some grazing off of these more fragile acres and still get the gain we need off the cattle and still keep the resources there, and improve soil health all at the same time.”
Rest for forage means that no animals are grazing and can occur any time of the year, Swaffar said, and recovery means no animals are grazing and it is the growing season.
“When you have recovery, you are getting back to the point where those forages can be grazed again,” Swaffar said. “Rest has done none of that for you. All that did was move animals to another place. If you want your forages to be vigorous and healthy every year, you must let them rest and recover during the growing season.”
Swaffar also talked about opportunities to graze more than just cattle on pasture ground.
“We have got some areas of this state where if we don’t get animal impact out there, we got species that are just going to create a jungle that is difficult to get any grazing value out of,” Swaffar said. “A goat or a sheep is a tool to open some of those areas up, take down some of those less desirable species…we can use these animals as tools to achieve some of the goals we are looking for.”
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