Grazing Livestock | Tim's Take 35

What can we do about supplemental pasture feeding during the summer? Whether it's just the summer slump or a drought, can we feed our livestock and still see profit? Join Tim Reinbott and his guests this month, Dr. Harley Naumann and Dr. Eric Bailey, as they break down the calculations of expenses and strategies for grazing livestock and managing forages.

Part One Video: https://youtu.be/V7GINKsHXEM

Part Two Video: https://youtu.be/2V4Hd3zNV0g

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The Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station (MOAES) extends CAFNR research to nearly 14,000 acres across the state to meet regional research and demonstration needs of agricultural producers and natural resource managers. MOAES has a storied history of major impacts in advancing science in agriculture, food and natural resources — locally, nationally and globally. These CAFNR laboratories provide research faculty with a wide variety of real-world conditions to test and develop strategies for agricultural production based on the geographical and climatic differences of our diverse state.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
[♫]
Well, welcome to Tim's Take today, and we're in for a double treat because we have two
guests. The first one is... is Dr. Harley Naumann. He's our State Extension Forage
and Grazing Management Specialist. And the other one is Dr. Eric Bailey. He's our State Extension

(00:23):
Beef Nutrition Specialist. And the reason we have these together because today we're going to talk
about what we can do to have, uh... supplemental pasture feeding during the summer because often,
uh... the drought hits and we think "Oh, my gosh! What am I going to feed my livestock?" And it's
too late then! So let's think about this a little bit ahead of time. So, let's start off with just

(00:48):
a general conversation. Harley, is this a big issue? (Harley Naumann) It's a big issue for
sure. And... and you... you mentioned drought. I'd like to mention one other aspect of our production
systems, uh... and that's the summer slump, right? So that... that's a predictable problem
that we have. (Tim) With our tall fescue. Our cool season grasses in... in general? (Harley) Right.
In general with our... you know, it doesn't have to just be tall fescue, but our mixed cool-season

(01:12):
perennial pastures are, uh... are going to slow in their production usually around,
uh... the beginning of summer, and they're going to stay that way through most of the summer and
even into the early fall. And that again, like I said, is a predictable issue, so we know that's
coming. And then of course, there's the potential for... for the drought or abnormally dry periods,

(01:37):
right? In the past, uh... well, I'd say since the year 2000, if you look at the data generated,
uh... by the models in the US drought monitor, since the year 2000, we've had one year where
somewhere in Missouri did not experience at least an abnormally dry period. And so,

(01:59):
I'd say that abnormally dry periods are the rule rather than the exception. And so, what we have
here today is an opportunity to talk about what are some ways that we can start planning for
both the summer slump and these highly probable, abnormally dry periods that we're going to deal
with. (Tim) Because, Eric, we got to watch the nutrition too. Just not having some feed out

(02:22):
there, we... we... that we got to look at having some good quality feed. (Eric Bailey) Well, in...
you know, cool-season, uh... grasses, they switch from their vegetative stage of production to the
reproductive stage of production in that late spring period, right? They put a stem and a seed
head up. Stems and seed heads are associated with more lignin, uh... more structural carbohydrates,

(02:43):
lower nutritive value, uh... both in terms of energy and crude protein. And so, you know,
if you think about it in a spring calving, or as I like to call it, a winter calving model like we
do in Missouri pretty commonly, right? We're, a lot of times, we're coinciding peak lactation
(which are the highest nutrient requirements for a cow) with the start of this summer slump.

(03:07):
So we're... we're also... when we need our best diets when we have forage quality declining and...
right? And so for a beef cow to rebreed, as you all talked about in your last podcast, you know,
she needs to stay in a 365 day calving interval. She needs to be rebred within 85 days of calving.
So any delays to her, um... resuming estrus, um... after that postpartum interval can be largely

(03:35):
impacted by declines in forage quality, declines in the nutritive value of her diet. And so there's
kind of a perfect storm right there, at least in our conventional model, um... for reductions in
forage quality. But then at the same time, we've also got the decline in forage production. Drought
will exacerbate declines in forage availability. (Tim) So if we have February calves, for example,

(03:57):
how long is... when's peak lactation end? (Eric) So peak lactation is generally thought to be about
60 days post calving. So you know, uh... the thing that I tell people that I don't think we think
about enough, so you say that your calving season starts February 1, but if you calve for 60 days,
then... and calves have an equal probability of being born at any day of the calving season, the

(04:21):
average birth date is March 1. (Tim) Okay. (Eric) If your calving season is extended longer than
that, if you've got a 90-day calving season, then your average calf is born more like March 15th,
which would make peak lactation be roughly May 15th. And essentially, lactation looks
like a big curve. So you get a big increase in nutrient demands with calving, and then a slow

(04:45):
steady decline afterwards. So it's not this, this, back to baseline. It's this, and then this going
kind of a... a... a gentle curve downwards afterwards. So your nutrient requirements are high
anyway. Plus that calf is getting larger, starting to eat some feed... then some forage themselves,
starting to graze, so you... you do see that kind of double whammy, both of needs for milk produc...

(05:11):
forage needs for milk production and forage needs for that calf as well. (Tim) So it's going to be
high May 1 till at least through July. (Eric) Absolutely. Absolutely. (Tim) And that is, like
you said, that's our... our cool-season grasses have already went reproductive. (Eric) Yep. (Tim)
Probably been already been hayed off, or grazed off, or even... even our legumes are starting to,

(05:34):
you know, middle of the summer they start going down. (Eric) Yep. (Tim) So... but our peak...
our peak is needed. So what are we going to do? So what's some options then, Harley? What can
we do? (Harley) Well, there are a lot of different options out there from a forage standpoint. That's
what... that's what I can contribute here. So, you just mentioned legumes, for example. And,

(05:55):
uh... you know, if you're... if you're in a typical system that we might see around here
where you've got a predominantly tall fescue based pasture, of course there's orchard grass in there,
and there's Kentucky blue grass, and there's some of these other things, but often times you see red
and white clover as well. You know, the red and white clovers, um... you know, it's not going
to do much for you in those summer months, right? And so, if we have the right legume then perhaps,

(06:20):
uh... we don't... we're not seeing quite a... a reduction in the... in
the legume and that... that contribution to forage quality. (Tim) Because really,
red and white clover are cool-season legumes, aren't they? (Harley) Right. (Tim) They're... they
peak out just probably with... as the cool season grasses do. (Harley) Pretty much, right? Um... so,
if we've got systems where we're putting some, uh... some annual lespedeza in there,

(06:44):
right? It's a warm-season legume. It, uh... it, uh... tolerates pretty poor soil fertility,
which we might say we characterize a lot of our soils in Missouri as poor fertility, low
phosphorus... that sort of thing. Then that's a... that's a good legume to have that's going to track
on through the summer. (Tim) And we can overseed that in the... in the late spring? I mean,

(07:08):
spring or... or late winter? Spring? (Harley) I would say you're overseeding that in late winter
to early spring. It works in a frost seeding model as well. (Tim) March? February/March?
(Harley) Sure. (Tim) O... overseed it? So, okay. And, um... and it's a... it's a perennial. (Harley) No,
it's an annual. (Tim) That's right! But it reseeds itself so easy. (Harley) Yeah, so it's... it's

(07:30):
pretty interesting. Um... it's an annual that it can behave or persist sort of perennially,
right? But you've got to manage for that. Uh... so if you're... if you're not, uh... a great grazing
manager, for example, and you don't... (Tim) Like Eric! [laughter] (Harley) If... if you don't allow
it to... to reseed, right? If you don't give it a little bit of rest to reseed, then it's not going

(07:53):
to persist very well. But if you give it a chance to rest and reseed there towards the end of the
summer, uh... then you'll have annual lespedeza persist in your pastures pretty well. (Tim) Well,
I've seen it because it gets in my yard, too. (Harley) Sure. (Tim) And... and... and I've seen
it just really short, producing seeds, blooming, you know, late in the... late in the... in the
summer and producing seeds, I suppose. (Harley) It doesn't take much. (Tim) Right. (Harley) Just

(08:16):
a little bit of rest, and it'll... it'll... (Tim) So pull your... you can pull them off
in what? August or something? Give it... to give them an opportunity? (Harley) Yep. (Tim) And,
all right. So that's... that's one of our... our warm-season lespedeza... I mean,
legumes. (Harley) Sure. (Tim) Then what? Sunn hemp? (Harley) Sunn hemp is another option. Um...
this is one that, you know, it's not... as far as legumes go, it's not going to be the super high

(08:40):
quality, or high nutritive value legume. It's got, you know, it's got some stem to it. It's
got a lot of fiber. It's mostly highly digestible fiber, so it's... it's a good legume to have, but
it's not this over-the-top, high protein forage crop. And... and so, in some regards, that's...
that makes it kind of a good option, um... for a lot of our systems here in Missouri. I'd let Eric

(09:01):
speak to that a little bit. Um... but it's... it's certainly one that you could think about adding,
um... and it's... it's one that you'd add a little bit later. (Tim) Right! You could...
you could... after you cut hay or... or graze it in the spring, you could... you could come in with
it. You... you could drill it in. (Harley) That's right. Yeah. Typically, after you've,
uh... after you've grazed your... your perennial cool-season grass pretty well, um... or if you've

(09:26):
done a hay event, then it's usually prime time to turn around, and you could drill or broadcast
sunn hemp into your pastures and have it grow with your fescue regrowth. (Tim) And... and you said,
what? Give it like 50 days or something like that? (Harley) Yeah, typically between 45 and...
and 55 days is usually when it's ready to go, when it's ready to harvest. Yep. (Tim) And...

(09:47):
and they could graze it? Or... or you could harvest it for hay? (Harley) You could. I mean,
we prefer that you graze it. It works a lot better in a grazing system, I think,
than... than hay. Um... but certainly, if... if you're looking for a summer legume hay,
that's... it's an option. (Tim) All right. Now, so how do... how... how do those fit with the...
the nutritional needs of our livestock? (Eric) You know, that's a great question, Tim, and I think it

(10:10):
speaks to a broader conversation. An observation that I've had in the nearly eight years that I've
lived in Missouri now is that we have some cattle guys that are very, very good managers of their
genetics, of their... their management system for their cattle, they... they produce good cattle,
but they don't do a great job with their forages. Right? So, we... you... I know that you can think

(10:30):
of farms that you've driven by that, you know, great cattle, pretty poor forage management.
On the other hand, we see a lot of farms that are great grass managers who maybe don't quite have
their... their, um... cattle operation dialed in quite so much, and so one of the things that
I appreciate so much about Dr. Naumann and my op... we're housed in the same office suite now,

(10:53):
so we get to collaborate a lot more because of our proximity to one another. We can have these
conversations with folks, that it really... you got to think about this in the broader context
of a system, right? And... and there's multiple components to this system. So you know, I'm...
I'm not dodging your question, but I... I want to put a little broader context to it because, right?

(11:13):
There's... there's two parts to this. There's the nutritive value of the forage which we discussed
earlier, but then there's also just simply forage availability. Right? So, I mean, if we don't have
anything for them to graze, if that fescue... we generally think of tall fescue being, um...
between 250 and 400 pounds of forage dry matter per inch of height across an acre. So an acre

(11:39):
inch is how I'm going to refer to that. Right? So when we graze these pastures down below that kind
of 4 inch threshold that we tell folks, we really start to see marked declines in forage intake by
beef cattle. Because we know that in general, a beef cow's going to graze about 8 hours a day,
she's going to rest about 8 hours a day, and she's going to ruminate about 8 hours a day. And forage

(11:59):
availability impacts bite size. How much feed she consumes per bite. But we're not going to
change number of bites a whole lot in that system, and so we need to have that forage available. So
what I think is an important con... piece to this conversation is that we need something available
for them to graze as well in the summer months, right? And so I think that's where Dr. Naumann's

(12:19):
work is... is so important. Um... I say this also to bring up the point that I guess how I envision
the implication of these summer annuals, uh... being implemented on these farms is you've got
first a managed grazing system. So you've got multiple paddocks to go to, right? And so, you
know, I think folks will hear our prescriptions on podcasts, at talks, in Extension guide sheets,

(12:43):
newspaper, popular press articles, and they think that they need to go do their entire farm. Really
the way that you could be most effective with it is to implement it on a component or a piece of
your farm. Some of your paddocks but not all of your paddocks, right? So that you allow for that
proper rest to occur, right? For annual lespedeza to regenerate. Or, you give sunn hemp that 6 weeks

(13:05):
to get ready before you graze it, you know. One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people are
going to make in the state of Missouri is they're going to have reached that kind of 100 days of hay
feeding threshold, they're going to be kicking cows out right now because they're... they're
chasing green. They see some green grass out in their pastures, but there's no forage height out
there. And so, then what happens is that the cows are eating this super high nutritive value feed,

(13:30):
and they get very loose in their manure, and I'll hear complaints about the grass is too washy. It's
going right through the cows. Well, the reality is there's just not enough dry matter out there for
these cows right now. That mistake gets repeated again in the summer months. And so, you know,
when we implement these summer annuals on a... in a forage system, we need to have some... we need

(13:50):
to have that forage system wrangled, and we need to think about maybe targeted application of it to
certain pieces of your forage system to really maximize the grazing value out of it. Cuz I,
you know, I don't want to speak for Dr. Naumann, or even for you, Tim, but you know, for me,
if I'm going to plant something, I want to graze it because it's two to three times the cost to
hay it as it is to graze it. And I know a lot of folks that are doing native warm-seasoned

(14:15):
grasses. They're doing sunn hemp. They're doing sorghum sudan, and they're turning around and
baling it, and so you're already investing on the establishment side, but then you're doubling down
on the harvesting side, and you're making some pretty expensive forage. And in an era of $4 corn,
$4.50 cent per bushel corn, there's probably cheaper calories out there than moderate to low

(14:40):
quality hay that I paid to establish, I paid to harvest, I paid to store, and I paid to
feed. (Tim) So what would be the ideal that, um... because I have to have some baled hay. So do I...
do that in May? Get my baled hay and after that, I'm all managing my... my fields? (Harley) It's a
great question. I mean, I... I think if you're going to put the expense forth to make hay,

(15:09):
my opinion is you should make good hay. And for us, in our cool-season perennial pastures,
I mean, making good hay means making hay in... in May, earlier if... if the opportunity is there.
Um... before, and... and really maybe we throw the calendar out the window,
and we don't want to put a month on it. Maybe we just say before we start to transition out

(15:32):
of vegetative forage into reproductive forage, that's when we need to be making hay if we're
going to make it. Um... just so we're not putting the cost out there to... to make poor quality hay,
right? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But oftentimes that's what we see out there is, you
know, hay being made in July, sometimes in August, right? Sometimes even later and, uh... so we're...

(15:57):
we're making a really expensive, poor quality product at that point. (Tim) Because 40% of
the cost is in the machinery to... well, I heard one farmer say, "If you're honest with yourself,
you got $40 per bale just in the machinery cost." (Eric) I don't... I don't disagree with that,
but I'll advocate actually for a zero hay system. So I've... I've gone far enough in my career,

(16:19):
I'm out. I'm not going to try and advocate to reduce from 120 days to 90 days, or 90 days to
60 days. Hay should be thought of by farmers as an insurance policy. That was the way that we did
it in New Mexico because it was so expensive. We always had a semi-load of hay in the barn to feed
if we had a blizzard, if we had a wildfire, we... if we ran out of forage and we were in a bind,

(16:42):
but incorporating it as a normal component of our production system increases our cost. Hay,
it... it's... it's insane that we're talking about $1,600 weaned calves, and our cost of production,
at least if you look at the Extension cow/calf budgets released in fall of 2024 showed cost
of productions of $1,720 a cow. And our largest expense, our largest two expenses, are pasture and

(17:07):
stored forage. (Tim) So wait. We have record high prices... (Eric) Mhm. (Tim) ...but we're still
losing the $100 a head? (Eric) Yes, absolutely. Now, I will say, so we'll get a lot of push back
from farmers on that. There's two things that this thing... that these budgets do that farmers don't

count (17:22):
labor, right? So $195 a cow in labor is  what's estimated on those budgets under those
constraints, and then another $400 per cow in replacement costs. So that's, you know,
we turn 15 to 20% of a cow herd over in a year. Um... the cost of developing heifers or buying
bred heifers, and then the cost of those cows who haven't paid for themselves before they're cold,

(17:45):
right? So that depreciate... cow depreciation is bundled up in that cow replacement. And so
those are two significant costs that farmers don't write a check for that should be counted
against their business, right? Because they're... they're... they're non-cash costs, but they're
expenses no doubt. Now, we're getting a little too animally for the... for this... I... I don't want

(18:06):
to steal the... the topic at hand away. (Tim) But they're... but they're melded together. (Eric) But
they're absolutely melded together. And the big piece that I want to drive the point home before
we... we move on to something else, the system that we're describing that requires hay, utilizes
100% of your farm's carrying capacity for cows. You have all of your eggs in a single basket,

(18:30):
and that single basket requires feed 365 days a year. Yet, we're asking of a forage system where
the average growing season is less than 240 days a year, and Dr. Naumann could probably sharpen
that number up, right? And so we're creating the conditions where we have to carry forage forward.
We have to stockpile for four months out of the year for a third of the year, right? And so,

(18:52):
what I advocate for is not having all of your eggs in a single basket. Having multiple grazing
enterprises. So cows, if you want to have cows, great. But, be ha... be... have the ability to
have a secondary or even a tertiary enterprise that's not on the farm year round so that you can
vary your stocking rate. Because your stocking rate ought to vary with your pasture forage

(19:16):
production potential, right? So in the spring, we generally have more grass than we know what to do
with for about 90 days, right? And then we're forage poor for basically the rest of the year.
The premise of this conversation today was simply to talk about strategies, maybe to extend that...
that forage growth curve, right? But we also have to think about the system that we're utilizing

(19:38):
with it. We probably need, I... I say this at meetings and I get a lot of push back from it,
but I believe it. Every farm in the state of Missouri that feeds hay for 90 days a year
would be more profitable... profit, not revenue (too many producers get those mixed up), with 10%
fewer cows than what they have today. I'm... I'm convinced. I'm absolutely convinced. So, that's,

(20:03):
uh... you know, as we... as we think through this, you know, nutritive value of these summer annuals
also, we should ask whether we're going to make more money harvesting that forage with a growing
calf versus a... a mature brood cow. (Tim) Right. So, and I think you told us one time,
like in those months that we have more than... more than forage than we know what to do with,

(20:25):
we could put stockers out there. (Eric) Absolutely. (Tim) Buy some stockers,
but then you get... then you sell them after 3 months. But... but now you're back in the summer,
and you still have your pregnant... you... you have pregnant cows that have high demand from
the lactation. (Eric) Yep, absolutely. I... I don't disagree with that one bit. You know,
and one thing that we've been talking about here recently, if you look at sale reports,

(20:48):
pregnant cows seem to be undervalued. Pregnant mature cows, particularly first period of... of
gestation, fall calving cows right now, for whatever reason, they seem to be a little
bit undervalued in the marketplace. And so, you don't even have to think about stockers. In fact,
I'm working with a farm family over near Pilot Grove right now, helping them figure out their own

(21:08):
version of my double stock concept but with cows instead. And so we're actually using P1 bred cows,
4 to 8 year old cows, buying those instead of stockers and carrying them all through the fall.
So it... it makes these conversations about summer annual forages even more important, right? If...
especially as we're thinking about, you know, nutrient requirements of a late gestation cow

(21:30):
increase significantly, right? I think you've had Dr. Meyer on before to talk about the impacts of,
um... you know, developmental programming, right? And developmental programming in a nutshell really
sort of comes down to the fact that maybe we're underfeeding those animals at a really critical
time for fetal development. (Tim) In that last trimester. (Eric) In that last trimester.

(21:50):
Exactly. So... (Tim) So if we're going to do hay, let's do good quality hay if we, you know,
if we got to have it. (Eric) Yep. (Tim) But then, let's manage our pastures. (Harley) Well,
and one of the thing... well, there were a couple things Dr. Bailey mentioned in
there that I think are really important to think about, right? He said something about grazing to a
365... (Tim) Yes. (Harley) ...day year, right? And then another thing that was mentioned was carrying

(22:16):
capacity, and maybe how we could do better on 10% fewer head, right? I mean, just... just doing the
calculation and figuring out what is your actual carrying capacity, and just because your carrying
capacity is X doesn't mean we need to be stocked at X, right? Um... so if we're... if we're stocked

(22:38):
under our carrying capacity, and if we develop our carrying capacity to a 365-day grazing season,
we're going to be putting our better foot forward, right? Than if we're spending a
bunch of time out there chasing our tails trying to plant forages when we're going to need them,
uh... trying to put up hay so that we can, you know, graze at this particular stocking rate that

(23:03):
we've decided we need to have for whatever reason, right? So... (Tim) But with land values the way
they are, you may have to make the most of what you've got, too. So you may have to be a little
bit more intensive. (Eric) Well, let's... let's be candid and honest about it. If you look at it,
I've done the math on this, right? So I'm 38 years old. I got a young family. I would really

(23:23):
like to have a big spread someday. But even in the current market conditions, the best system
that I could create where I minimized my inputs in iron and oil equipment, basically, and labor,
a grazing operation is going to cash flow about $2,500 an acre land cost. Anything above that,

(23:45):
your... your cash flow becomes negative. And so then you end up in that trap where you subsidize
your farm with off-farm income, right? And so I think that's the trap that we have seen for
generations in the state of Missouri where we start small. Farm. We work in town to subsidize
the farm. We grow the farm to about the point where you get to be 45-50 years old. The farm

(24:07):
is large enough to support an income. Well, now you've got two jobs, right? Two full-time jobs,
and you... you end up kind of prematurely wore out in that system. And I... I think that's... I
think we got to have... there's a reckoning coming for that, right? Because I don't... my generation,
I would hope that we're not going to accept that path because that's... that's a traditional model,

(24:28):
and that's quite honestly an unreasonable model going forward, I believe... personally. So I'm...
I'm trying to create systems where my agriculture enterprise is cash flow positive, and so that it
will support a greater, you know, um... value on the land. It'll... it'll pay for more of the land.

(24:49):
I think that's... you know, we talk a big game about, um... wanting to bring the next generation
back to the farm. The number one reason we don't bring the next generation back to the farm is we
don't generate enough cash flow. Period. That's... that's... now, we're way the heck off topic,
and Harley's wondering, 'Why did I go tell Eric to come down and join this podcast this morning?" But
that's... (Tim) Sure. (Eric) That's part of this whole conversation. Cuz, you know, and there's

(25:13):
one more metric that we need to discuss, right? And that's sort of underpins this entire deal:
pounds of beef produced per acre per year. How... how many pounds of beef do we produce
per acre? And how do we do that in context with the carrying capacity of the farm? What will the
carrying capacity of the farm allow versus, you know, our inputs in iron and oil? (Tim) Well,
let's talk about it next time then. Our next part of this podcast, about how we can increase

(25:38):
that carrying capacity because... because I think that's really fits part of our summer program too,
doesn't it? (Harley) You bet. (Tim) All right. So, this is it for today's Tim's
Take! Uh... next... next week we'll have the... the conclusion of this where we're going to
look more on... more carrying capacity and how we could improve that. We'll see you next time.
(Tim Reinbott) We're continuing our conversation with, uh... Drs. Harley Naumann and Eric Bailey

(26:04):
about alternatives for summer pasture, but also the stocking capacity, how we figure that. So last
time we talked about a couple options being... being legumes like, um... uh... Korean lespedeza
or sunn hemp, but there's other options too for the summer in... in... in our sorghums and other
grasses. (Dr. Harley Naumann) Sure. There are quite a few options in the grass space. Um...

(26:27):
you know, you just mentioned some sorghums. The sorghums, sorghum sudan hybrid. Sudangrass is one
that's, you know, kind of... I don't know, it was popular a long time ago, and then sort of fell out
of favor with the, I think, with the hybrids and their popularity, but quite a good option
as well. Um... there's pearl millet is another option. There's crab grass. There's Bermuda grass.

(26:50):
There's... (Tim) Now, crabgrass I've tried to kill a lot of. (Harley) That's right. (Tim) Bermuda
grass is, uh... we had that in our yard. It was... it wasn't very fun, but they're great
forages. (Harley) Yeah, yeah! Right. So, um... yeah. Both of those. You know, you hear a lot of
people, they kind of bristle at... at the idea of crabgrass, but the forage varieties, the improved

(27:10):
varieties, are... are fantastic. Um... they can make a... make quite a, you know, pretty good
amount of tonnage for... for summer grazing. (Tim) Now, I've als... often heard though, they take
nitrogen. And people... that you've got to put enough on it to make it grow, these... these big
tonnages that... that people talk about. (Harley) They'll certainly produce more with nitrogen, but

(27:31):
I don't think that it's absolutely necessary that you're putting... (Tim) Oh, really? (Harley) You
know, you don't have to go feed the heck out of them. (Tim) Okay. (Harley) Um... but like
any grass, right? You could say that any grass takes nitrogen to be more productive,
right? Depends on what you need. Depends on what you're trying to get out of it as to whether that
pencils out. (Tim) Sure. And when... when... when would you plant those then? (Harley) So, crabgrass

(27:55):
is kind of an interesting one. We'll just bring that... bring that here since we're talking about
it right now. Um... it's one that it'll actually germinate really early. Uh... you know, the soil
temperature of about 56 degrees or so... (Tim) Oh, May! April/May! (Harley) Crab... yeah, crabgrass
will germ. And so, um... it's one that, you know, you could... you could actually seed that pretty

(28:17):
early on and... and maybe even kind of, you know, think about frost seeding crabgrass, and... and
you'll... you'll have that show up. But you could seed it in... in May as well. Um... we've... we've
done it multiple ways, early and late, and gotten good stands with it. Um... and it can
produce upwards of, you know, three tons to the acre with... with some decent, you know, if you

(28:42):
get a little bit of rainfall in the summertime. So... (Tim) Like... like everything else, rain's
going to make a difference of course. (Harley) Of course. Of course. Um... so, yeah. That's a pretty
good option, I think. I like it. Um... (Tim) And good for grazing as well as... grazing mostly
or... or for hay production? (Harley) I think we tend to talk about crabgrass in grazing system
primarily. (Tim) Grazing... sure. (Harley) Yep. And it's a nice compliment to your fescue as well.

(29:04):
So if you had them in mixed situation... (Tim) So I could... I could... I could overseed my tall
fescue then with crabgrass. (Harley) Sure. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think that's a pretty nice
option. Yep. If you're looking for high nutritive value forage especially. (Tim) Sure. Sure.
And Bermuda grass maybe a little bit... you got, it's... it's not quite as cold tolerant,
just a little bit later. (Harley) Not quite as cold tolerant, but there are some... they...

(29:28):
they've made some improvements over the years in cold tolerance in Bermuda grass, and so there are
some varieties available that, uh... they'll work up here in Central Missouri, you know, just fine.
They're not going to be as productive as any of those southern, you know, forage varieties,
but... but they'll certainly provide you adequate summer grazing opportunities. (Tim) Now,

(29:49):
how about our sorghums? We... we could... they're... they're more, what? Mid/late May
planting into June? (Harley) Typically. Uh... you know, typically you'll see, uh... yeah, mid/late
May is about right. And June 1 you hear used a lot around here, um... as a planting date for any of
the sorghum... sorghum hybrids. Um... they and... you could plant them later as long as you got the,

(30:13):
you know, got a rainfall to carry them. (Tim) And, but the big thing on that, we don't want to get
them too... too tall, right? (Harley) Right. It's like anything, right? Um... any of these forages,
you know, you could... you could equate in this case height maybe with maturity, right? You don't
want them to get, um... too overmature or the... or you're going to lose a bunch of nutritive
value out of those. (Tim) Or start going into reproduction. (Harley) Yeah. (Tim) Start... start

(30:35):
throwing a head up, we know you... you... you've waited long enough or too long. (Harley) That's
right. But then you got to be careful. You mentioned height, and so I'll bring in the
old rule of thumb with some of these sorghum sedan hybrids, right? Um... they do, or they do
have the potential to prod... produce prussic acid, right? And so, uh... with... with that,
we want to make sure that we're not grazing them when they're too mature because there's a risk of

(30:59):
toxicity when they're too mature as well. So... oh, you hear different things out there, whether
they're minimum grazing height of 18 inches or 24 inches to get out of that window of the prussic
acid risk. (Tim) All right. But you know, one of the things that surprised me one time is when I
looked at the forage quality. Ran it through the NIR, you know, the... or the labs, and I compared

(31:22):
it to the tall fescue, and I thought, "Oh, my gosh! These warm-season grasses aren't near as
good as... as the tall fescue was quality-wise." Is that... was that a good observation or... or
am I compar... comparing apples to oranges here? (Harley) Well, there's a little bit of apples and
oranges. You mentioned the NIR. (Tim) Right. Oh, yeah. Threw that... threw that... that acronym

(31:46):
out. (Harley) Yeah, so... you know, the NIR is only as good as the calibration that you use
in... in a lot of ways. And so, um... if you're not making your own, you know, calibration with
your own plant material and things, you can run into some... some trouble... (Tim) Well, these are
ones that... that we send off to a lab. (Harley) Sure, but what calibrations are they using,
right? Um... if you send, for example, if you send a forage out that's doesn't have a lot of data

(32:11):
behind it to a lab, so like sunn hemp for example, right? Relatively novel. Um... what calibration
curve are they gonna used to measure the nutritive value of sunn hemp using an NIR, right? Are there
a lot of data behind that calibration? So some of those things, uh... you got to kind of look
at a little bit more closely. (Tim) So if we're grazing year round, for example, so that 90 days

(32:36):
that we talked about last time that we're grazing that we... that we're probably grazing stockpiled,
that data could be a little bit deceiving too, couldn't it? Because how many times
have we ran January sorghums out there, or January forage, quality-wise? (Eric Bailey) Yeah,

(32:57):
I think if you've got any question whatsoever about the forage, if it's an atypical variety,
if it's an atypical time, your best bet is to request a wet chemistry analysis on it.
To actually directly measure acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, crude protein,
etc. Right? So these NIRs, they were originally developed to determine the starch content of

(33:20):
corn. (Tim) Really?! And we've just expanded that? (Eric) And, yeah! And it was a great technique,
but it was also originally developed with a very homogeneous product, right? And I... it might have
even been wheat actually was the first deployment of NIR. It was either wheat or corn but in the
late 60s, um... and we've just expanded the use of it over time. A lot of these calibrations are

(33:42):
proprietary to these companies, so we don't know what their... what goes into their calibration,
um... uh... equations, one. Two, we also don't know which calibration equation they're going to
apply to our forage. So if we've mislabeled our forage or not been descriptive enough,
they might just throw it into a general bin. And I'll tell you, there are some forage tests

(34:05):
that I receive each year that I know are done incorrectly because they were done via NIR. Now
why do people use NIR? It's non-destructive. It's faster for the lab to do it, so they generally
will offer it at a discount relative to wet... wet chemistry. But if you're getting into any
atypical situation or atypical forage, it needs to be... and I would even go so far as to say mixed

(34:28):
forage. I would trust NIR for alfalfa. Alfalfa is alfalfa is alfalfa, right? I don't know that I
would trust NIR as much for a mixed forage stand. I think... I think that's where we could see some
differences and discrepancies. (Tim) Or if I say, "I've have a... I have a tall fescue/red clover

(34:50):
pasture out there." Right. (Eric) Yeah. (Tim) They may be really 95% tall fescue, so... but
I've thrown the... I've thrown their curve off. (Eric) Exactly. Yeah. So... so if in doubt,
wet chemistry. And generally, I tell people to use wet chemistry because it... it seems like
anymore the lab's not any faster getting NIR results back than they are wet chem,

(35:11):
and it's to save five bucks a sample? (Tim) I was going to say, I've ran some,
uh... wet chem cuz... cuz they didn't have the curves. (Eric) Yeah. (Tim) And it is just as quick
and cost a few more dollars. (Eric) Yep. (Tim) And that data is probably, like you... you say, a bit
more accurate. (Eric) Because going back to the original point: so I do hear this pretty commonly
from producers that the native warm-season grasses, warm-season annuals, seem to test

(35:32):
more poorly than what they would... (Tim) Exactly! (Eric) ...what they might feed. And so I've...
I've had to really spend a fair bit of time in the kind of fiber chemistry world thinking about
this. Now there's two points to make though. Have we overestimated the nutritive value of fescue
historically or are we underestimating the value of these native warm-season grasses? And I think

(35:55):
there's really evidence for both of those. And so again, the... these laboratory analyses, they're
the... our best guess at what the nutritive value of that feed stuff is, but really the cow is going
to be the one that tells us, right? (Tim) So just looking at her. (Eric) Looking at her. Plus they
also don't factor in how much of that feed she's eating. I could give, right? So like you and I,

(36:20):
we could meet our daily nutrient requirements eating two pounds of Snickers bars a day,
right? Well, not even two pounds. It would be like two tenths of a pound of Snicker bars a day. But,
right? If you eat five bites of food a day, it doesn't matter how nutrient dense it's going
to be, you're going to... your blood sugar is going to do this. You're going to be hangry,
right? Versus having three balanced meals. It's the same deal with cattle, right? So if we give

(36:44):
them a handful of really good quality feed, they... they're going to still express hunger
and act aggressive for feed because their gut is empty by and large. That's what's happening
right now in March. All of these cows that are body conditions score four, rough hair coat,
out on green grass, nursing young calves, they're losing body weight right now. They're not gaining,

(37:08):
but it's not because the nutritive value of the feed is poor, it's because there's not enough
feed out there for them. (Tim) Well, like you said last time, they... they're only gonna take so many
bites a day, and if there's not a lot to bite... (Eric) Yep. (Tim) ...they're not getting near
enough, even though it's good! (Eric) Exactly. (Tim) They're not getting very much in there. And
same thing in the summertime. We got to make sure we have... like one of the things I thought about,

(37:29):
when we overseed, let's say we had the Korean lespedeza, if it's not very much biomass out
there, they're not getting a lot, are they? Even though it's good stuff. (Harley) That's right. I
mean, and... and really with lespedeza, it's a... it's a compliment to whatever is there, right?
It's not meant to be there. It doesn't produce enough to be everything that's on the plate,

(37:50):
right? (Tim) So... so, could we manage then, we have our pastures that we want to improve in
the summer, but we can also just have some fields that were dedicated to annual crops. Could we do
that too? (Harley) You could do that. For sure you could do that. (Tim) And your sorghums could come
into to play and that sort of thing. (Harley) That's right. (Tim) And... and we just manage
that, and even you can stockpile going into the winter on that too, couldn't you? (Harley) Yeah,

(38:14):
and you bring up a good point with stockpile. I mean, having a place to go
in the summertime to give your perennial cool-season pasture some rest is... is going to
extend your grazing season in more than one way. It's going to extend your grazing season in the
summertime because you're going to a place where you've got adequate forage availability, um... and

(38:35):
they're going to graze that. You're also extending your grazing season by allowing that cool-season
perennial grass to rest. It's going to be much better able to stockpile for fall grazing going
into the winter if it's had some rest because that old adage, "It takes grass to grow grass,"
that's real, right? But if we stay on that fescue pasture all summer long, and we're beating it up,

(38:59):
beating it up, beating it up, and then we try to give it a break there at the end, you know,
in August or something to start stockpiling, it's just trying to survive at that point, right? It's
not going to grow much biomass. It's not going to give you what you're going to need to carry you
for very long at all into the wintertime. And so, that... you know, that... there's a multiple ways

(39:20):
that these warm-seasons can help us out. (Tim) Can we even plant our native warm-season grasses into
our tall fescue, into our cool-season grasses? (Harley) Native warm-season grasses? (Tim) Right.
Like could you have a switch grass/tall fescue mix? Does that work? I've heard some noise about
that. (Harley) There is some noise out there about that. I... I'd say, you can do that. Um... we've

(39:41):
got... we actually have an example of it down at, uh... one of our farms, the Wurdack Farm,
uh... where we've got big bluestem and Indian grass and tall fescue planted in the same acres
and, uh... we're... we're trying to understand how well that works. We're getting... I can't
quote the data because I don't have it off the top of my head, but the number of grazing days,

(40:05):
the caring capacity that we have on that system is... is really impressive. Um... but we've just
been doing that for two years, so we want to... we want to carry a little bit longer term before
we start really talking about it. but... (Tim) Sure. (Harley) Yeah. Absolutely. Those plants
are working well together. It... it all comes down to how you manage them, right? And... but what you
see is, you've got perennial cool-season grazing, uh... in the spring, and then as that competition,

(40:33):
uh... as the competition from that component decreases, you've got the native warm-seasons
that are coming on, and you've got that to graze through the summer, and then the... the cool-seasons
are coming back in the fall. Now, it does require some rotational grazing. It does require some rest
for both components for that system to work, but um... but it's... it's working pretty

(40:55):
well. (Tim) I think what we're... we're hearing a lot is that we need to manage our whole system.
To really be thinking about what... what... what I want spring, summer, and fall and... and
even into those 90 days of traditional hay... hay feeding that we could be stockpiling. (Eric) Well,
and let's even take this conversation back to tall fescue, right? So tall fescue was developed

(41:16):
in the 30s and released in the 50s, right? As a replacement for Kentucky blue grass/orchard grass
that didn't withstand continuous grazing, over... chronic overstocking, right? But fescue does. And
we have come to see fescue like the terminator of this forage system that just is the unbeatable

(41:40):
thing because it's the only thing... it's the last man standing with traditional, conventional
management, right? But you know, I think what Dr. Naumann is illustrating here with the...
the mixed stand of warm and cool-season grasses is that that's not always the case if you change

(42:01):
the management, right? So fescue shades out a lot of competition, right? When it gets a really dense
thatch layer and then a really dense canopy, when it's essentially a monoculture, right? It... it
doesn't, it... it crowds out competition. But if you weaken the stand of fescue any, then you open
that canopy back up, and you let other grasses proliferate. Now... (Tim) Or legumes. (Eric) Or

(42:23):
legumes, for that matter. Absolutely right. And so what I would say as a non-forage agronomist,
you know, in a... if you're going to make a system like that work long-term,
you've got to think about when you're timing your defoliation events, right? And so I would tell you
that if I wanted to manage that system for native warm-season grasses, I'd burn it in April once the

(42:43):
fescue has gotten up, every year. I would burn it until I've knocked the fescue back. Conversely,
if I missed timed my fire by 30 days and burned in early March instead, I'm just going to create...
open up the canopy for fescue to get really thick and maybe potentially shade out the native
warm-season grasses. Fire is no different than grazing is no different than haying. Those are

(43:04):
all defoliation events. You just... it's changing the timing to optimize the system. (Tim) All
right. So we... we... we talk about stocking rates. So how do we figure that out? I mean,
how do we... how do we... how do we figure that? (Harley) Well, this is a... this a great question.
I mean, stocking rates, we have to remind everybody that that is a management decision,

(43:28):
right? We as... we as land managers, we decide how many animals we're going to put out there. Um...
we use carrying capacity is what... (Tim) Carrying capacity! Yes. Ok. (Harley) ...we need to figure
out. Right. And not exceed that for sure. Um... so that... that's the key, right? And you have to
know something about your system to be able to accurately, uh... calculate carrying capacity. I

(43:48):
mean, you need to know what is your annual forage production on average, right? Um... you need to
know how many days do I want to graze? And what we've said already here is we should be planning
on 365 if we have a year-round enterprise, right? So if you're in cow/calf, budget 365 day grazing

(44:09):
period, right? If you're not, if you're running stockers, then it depends on your system, right?
How many days you're going to... going to carry those, right? So your carrying capacity depends
a lot on that grazing period. Um... you need to know what your average utilization is going
to be. Okay? So that's straight up... that's a function of your management. Right? Am I going

(44:31):
to practice take half/leave half, for example, so I'll have a 50% utilization over the whole system
for the 365 days? Um... and you need to know what the average intake is of your animal, right? So,
uh... kind and class of animal matters. Um... we like... a lot of times you'll see folks use, with

(44:53):
cattle anyway, with cow/calf operation, they'll take a 3% of body weight, for example. Because
sometimes they're going to be lactating but not always, right? And so... (Tim) 2% just normal,
but 3% lactating, is that how it is? (Harley) Yeah, 2.5% may be more normal, you know, um...
but it... there's a range there is the point, and you probably want to live in the average

(45:14):
or live a little bit higher to give yourself a little bit of a buffer, right? But you have to
know some things about the whole system to... to determine the carrying capacity. (Tim) And
you were saying that our carrying capacity of tall fescue probably is not as much as we think
that it is. (Harley) Probably not. I mean, if you did a Google search online pretty quickly of what

(45:34):
is the average carrying capacity in Missouri or the typical stocking rate, something like that,
you'll hear... there's usually a range out there, uh... but you know, two acres to the
pair. Maybe sometimes you see three acres to the pair. And we've been working on a couple of farms
here lately where we're actually going out, and we're physically measuring all of these things and

(45:57):
putting the pencil to paper, and it's coming out a lot closer to... to 5 acres to the pair. (Tim) For
year round? (Harley) For year round. 365 days. Right. And these are for... this is just... this
is average management. (Eric) There's also an animal component to this though. The size of the
cow will determine her intake, and we have heard from on high for years that we need better feedlot

(46:24):
cattle, right? We're the white tablecloth beef producer. We have marketed to producers
that maximizing weaning weight is the key to generating... maximizing revenue on the farm.
All of these... all of this marketing that you've heard has translated to the cow/calf producers of
making genetic selection decisions for larger females. We've made genetic selection decisions

(46:46):
for larger females that require more feed, and so now with the modern 1,500 pound cow, she takes 40%
more feed than the classical 1,000 pound cow that the animal unit system was established on 40 to 50
years ago. I would argue... and this is a hot take for Tim's Take podcast, we need to reclassify the

(47:09):
animal unit system based on a 1,500 pound cow, not 1,000 pound cow. Now, that... that totally changes
the whole equation though because, right? (Tim) Right! That's why it went from two and a half to
five... (Eric) That's a piece of it, right? So I think one piece of it is that maybe fescue is less
productive than we think it is in terms of forage production per acre per year. The second part

(47:30):
though is that our cows eat more feed than they used to, right? I mean, it would not be uncommon
for me to budget six to seven tons of forage per cow per year if I was going to graze 365 days a
year. And that's a modern cow; whereas, that budget not that long ago was four to five tons
of forage per acre per cow. (Tim) But we also got to think about the quality of that. You know,

(47:51):
we... we started out this conversation about NIR and... and... and getting that... that quality,
but that makes a difference too. We got energy. We got protein. And that's going to depend on
the... on the stage of her growth or the... or the stocker's growth. (Eric) Absolutely! Yeah,
and so, I mean, even going back to that. Like if I had my druthers, in a tall fescue system
I was going to run cows, on I'd calve in April. And I... that is another blazing hot take for

(48:16):
this podcast, [laughter] but what you're doing is you're trying to calve in sync with nature,
and you're trying to time forage quality with peak nutrient requirements in a cow. That's a principle
that works extremely well in other states, and that folks that are on the progressive side of
cattle production are doing, and they're reducing their inputs because they've synced their calving

(48:39):
season with their forage growth curve. I think we could do the same thing in Missouri, but there's a
lot of reluctance to do it. It's interesting, you know, the... it's... imagine (and this
is a graphic that I use to draw for shock and awe in Extension presentations), but imagine a little
baby, newborn calf just birthed from mama, still wet, being born on, uh... 6 inches of snow versus

(49:03):
that same calf being born in green grass with some wild flowers. I mean, that's the... that's
the simple piece of this whole deal! And so, you know, synchronizing your forage production system
and the nutrient cycle of the cows is... is an important piece because a cow's peak nutrient
requirements will be roughly 60% greater than her nutrient requirements when she's a non-lactating,

(49:28):
early gestation, first to second trimester gestation female. So there's... there's big
swings in nutritive... nutrient requirements over the course of a year. (Harley) To jump on that
April calving, I mean, so your peak lactation is in... if we're just going to use averages,
we're going to say June, right? And so that makes a great case for native of warm-season

(49:49):
grasses to be part of your grazing system, right? Because they're really coming on in May. You can
start grazing them right around the beginning of June. And, um... and we've got some data where
we showed that calves coming off of a system that graze, uh... tall fescue in the spring and then,
um... native warm-season grasses all summer long had considerably greater weaning weights than

(50:15):
calves that were coming off of the year-round, typical fescue grazing system. Uh... so that's,
I mean, that's when you... heavier weaning weights, that's money... money in the bank,
right? (Tim) And... and with, uh... native warm-season grasses can really put some... some...
some growth on. Do we really have to watch it even closer to make sure we keep it in that vegetative

(50:36):
size where... where we have that... that... that good quality? (Harley) Absolutely! I mean,
you want to... you want to keep... it's... it... it's not unique to native grasses. It's not
unique to introduced grasses. If you want good nutritive value for growing class of animals,
then keep it vegetative. (Tim) Well, in... in our last one, we talked about tall fescue harvest,

(50:58):
and we want to get it done in May, for example, before it hits reproduction, but I... I hear a
lot of producers say, "Yeah, but those stems is where I get all my yield from." A lot of my yield,
but the quality goes down a lot more than that, doesn't it? (Harley) Yeah, I mean, it's what...
what do you want? You want a whole bunch of cardboard? Or do you want a little bit less of

(51:19):
steak, right? I mean... (Tim) Right! Exactly. (Harley) It's... it's... that's the way I look at
it. (Tim) And really, tall fescue wants what? Once you get past, what? Mid-June? Is... it's pretty,
uh... (Eric) Well, that's (Tim) ...mostly cardboard. (Eric) ...that's where farmers
miss though, right? So if they wait to take their first cutting of fescue hay until after
the 4th of July, you're talking about 50 TDN, 6 to 8% crude protein. Tall fescue TDN, total

(51:44):
digestible nutrients measure of energy, that's insufficient to meet the energy needs of even the
non-lactating, early gestation, pregnant female, who has the lowest nutrient requirements. And so,
to avoid body condition score loss in that animal, you have to supplement on top of it. And so,

(52:05):
I would question if you have to go back and spend 40 cents per cow per day in supplement
on top of the hay you made, would you have been money ahead to just make better hay in the first
place? (Tim) Cuz, what? She needs like 61 or two TDN? (Eric) So, yeah. So anytime TDN is below 55,
it's not going to meet the nutrient requirements of any class of cow. Um, right? And lactating cows,

(52:27):
we generally think of above 60, 62 maybe 63. I've used the rule of thumb 55-60-65 in the
past to illustrate it as just a rule of thumb. I think that 65 is too high for lactating cows,
so 55 would be for gestating cows. 60 would be for late gestation. 65 for lactating. But I...
I think that's too high. It's... cuz I see in practice where lactating cows on 60... 62 TDN

(52:53):
feed will maintain body condition even though they're making 20 to 30 pounds of milk for that
calf each day. (Tim) You know, I always think, "The bigger the better!" (Eric) Yeah. (Tim) I've
always been disappointed when I only have 60 TDN. I want more! But... but that's not... that's not
bad. (Eric) Now, if... if you... if... if your forage analysis TDN starts with a six,
you've...you've won. (Tim) And that's energy. That gives you the energy, but now you need

(53:17):
protein on that too, don't you? (Eric) Well, so I'm... (Tim) Just depending. (Eric) I have been
trying for eight years now to... to de-emphasize protein and forage quality because there are a
lot of farmers in Missouri that equate forage quality with the crude protein concentration.
But I see... so out West, what's interesting, you talk about prairie hay in Kansas, I see a

(53:40):
lot of prairie hay that's 57 TDN, 3.5% crude protein. That forage is low in crude protein.
I see conversely, I see fescue hay in Missouri that's 8% crude protein, 9% crude protein, 48
TDN. Energy is our most limiting nutrient in this forage system by... and by a large margin. Yet,

(54:03):
we have a lot of popular press articles that are written for a national audience
that equate forage quality with protein. That is true in warm-season forage systems,
but is not true in cool-season forage systems. (Tim) Yeah, because I've heard others say that
energy is our most expensive thing to... to... to have to purchase. So if we can grow energy,

(54:25):
we're in good shape. Like so our winter grazing, high-end energy is good. (Eric) Yep! (Tim) Our
sorghums and such. It's just that we need that... that... that more protein possibly. Harley,
now you have a publication on maximizing our, uh... our summer production.
(Harley) Yeah. This is just... I... I grabbed a few publications off of,

(54:48):
uh... MU Extension website. Just thought we might reference some of those if we needed to. But,
um... we've got one here that's 'Maximizing Summer Grazing: It's a Guide to Warm-Season Forage
Management in Missouri.' That's something that anybody could Google that and look up, and it's
got decent information in there about, uh... some of the forage options.Talks about forage yields,

(55:08):
forage quality, seeding rates on some of these forages, seeding dates... some of those
things. (Tim) These ones that they were talking about like... like the summer ones? (Harley) Yep.
Selecting... yeah. You know, talks a little bit about selecting the right forages for Missouri,
so it's pretty specific. Um... got information in there on Bermuda grass, but also some
native grasses, crabgrass as well, so there are various things in there. It's pretty useful. Weed

(55:32):
management. Um... preparing for drought. Extreme weather. Right? All the things that we kind of
need to be thinking about at this time so that we have a plan in place, um... should we run into
those kinds of situations. (Tim) All right. Well, Eric, anything else that you want to conclude with
on your, uh... on the livestock end? (Eric) Hay is the devil. (Tim) Hay is the devil! [laughter] But

(55:56):
you know, I think several of them will say that we need to have some just in case we get these
ice storms that come up or these big snows where they can't graze. (Eric) But you need to be honest
about it. That's... you're describing an insurance policy. I'm not opposed to hay as an insurance
policy. But when hay gets... when it infiltrates our normal annual management plan, that's when

(56:19):
our feed bill goes up. That's when we have a less productive cow/calf operation because if a
quarter of the feed that we feed to a beef cow in a year costs three times what it should, I mean,
that's... that's your profit margin right there. There's that cash flow that I mentioned earlier,
right? So... (Tim) So what would I do now to even think about next fall and winter? Do I need to

(56:44):
start planting in... in the early summer? Spring? Like what I'm going to have going into November,
December, January, February that I... that I may need to have out in the field? Sorghums
are part of that? I would... I would think. Or... or stockpile tall fescue is part of
that? (Harley) Yeah, it's... it's kind of all of the above, right? It's what's... what is your plan

(57:05):
to minimize your need for stored forages in your grazing system? Um... and you know, that's again,
we'll go back to the... the basics, right? What is your caring capacity? And then what is your
stocking rate relative to your carrying capacity? Um... are you stocked appropriately to graze for
365 and, uh... and start there. And then start thinking about how do I get more grazing days,

(57:31):
right? Then you can start thinking about some of these other forage amendments to your... to your
system. (Tim) Do we have a Extension publication on 365 grazing yet? (Harley) No. (Tim) But we
need that, don't we? (Harley) We probably do. (Tim) That's... that's really where we're going
with... with lot of this. (Eric) I do want to put one plug in. So you need to take a stock
of the resources that you potentially have at your disposal because particularly if you're in

(57:53):
Northern Missouri, the crop residue availability, in particular cornstalks, right? So Nebraska,
it's very common for cows to get shipped out to cornstalks in November and get 60... 90 days
of additional grazing simply by harvesting the aftermath of a completely different production
practice. Right? And I know that farmers are maybe a little bit more reluctant to

(58:17):
do that here, and that we've lost a lot of our fence and water infrastructure to do so,
but you know those resources don't just necessarily have to come off of your farm as
well. Right? (Tim) But your neighbor. You could... you could lease that... that land for the... for
the winter. (Eric) Absolutely. (Tim) And I think you once said, "For every hundred bushels of corn,
you have 100 cow days per acre." (Eric) Correct. (Tim) ...out there, so... so we

(58:40):
can get quite a bit. And if you throw a cover crop, a winter wheat or something out there,
you can really get some very high quality. (Eric) Yeah, so I wouldn't... I wouldn't try
to run... I wouldn't try to background calves on cornstalks, right? There's low protein/low
energy. The best use, the highest and best use of cornstalks by themselves is that non-lactating,

(59:00):
early gestation, pregnant female with a low nutrient requirements. If those covers become
vital though, if you're trying to add weight to those cows, if you're trying to background calves,
if you're trying to... if you're trying to... to put any kind of weight on any class of cattle, right?
The cornstalk model is more about maintaining body weight, (Tim) Sure. (Eric) ...rather than

(59:22):
gaining. (Tim) But... but then again, our... our cover crops or our wheat can be implemented
with this and... and really give us some nice... (Eric) Absolutely. (Tim) All right. Anything else,
Harley, before we sign off? (Harley) No, I think we're good. (Tim) All right! Well,
thank you all! This is it for Tim's Take, and we had two great guests here,
and we'll continue with these hot topics that Eric brought up. We'll see you next time.

(59:45):
[♫]