News Update
October 20, 2011
Strip-till, Legume Cover Crop System Could Help
South Texas Growers
Two years ago, when Jamie Foster was moving from Florida to become a Texas AgriLife Research forage agronomist in South Texas, her job almost hit her in the face, literally.
“When I first moved here, I was driving between Mathis and Skidmore (near Corpus Christi),” Foster said. “The wind was blowing and topsoil was hitting my car.”
She thought of the 500 years it takes for the earth to produce 1 inch of topsoil, she said. “I wondered why people were producing crops the way they were.”
After settling in at her job at the Texas AgriLife Research Station in Beeville, Foster learned that for lots of reasons conventional tillage was the preferred method of producing crops.
Foster is working to identify legumes adapted to growing conditions in South Texas, including medics and clover, which have the potential to serve as cover crops.
“As off-season cover crops, the legumes have the potential to hold the soil in place on windy days and also improve the nitrogen cycling and availability,” she said. “Legumes do take a lot of phosphorus to grow, but as they degrade in the soil, they leave some behind that’s available for the row crops that follow its production, be it cotton or sorghum.”
As the cool-season legumes grow, they can be harvested periodically for hay for added income, or even grazed, she added.
This fall, Foster is starting legume research demonstration plots in Uvalde and Beeville to determine which perform best.
Click here to read more about this research in the Newsroom of API’s Feeding & Feedstuffs information site.
Hay Test Can Lead to More Efficient Feeding During Drought
An inexpensive hay test can offer the best guidance as to how much supplemental feed is required for a beef cattle herd and, at the same time, save ranchers money, according to a Texas AgriLife Research scientist. Considering the historic drought conditions that prevail across Texas, Tryon Wickersham, an AgriLife Research animal nutritionist, said forage testing is even more important for cattle producers watching the bottom line.
“With feeding programs being one of the most costly components of a cattle operation, every penny must be spent precisely, especially during these historic drought conditions,” Wickersham said. A hay test can cost $50 or less, and Wickersham said many ranchers may be feeding more hay or supplement than they have to or the wrong type of supplement. A hay test will reduce the likelihood of both situations, he said, noting that his recent research evaluated both variability in crude protein content and digestibility with Bermuda grass hays.
“The outcomes were a (bit) more variable than native grasses,” he said. “The outcomes depend on how much it has been fertilized and how mature the Bermuda grass is.”
The study found that increased Bermuda grass utilization (intake and digestion) with increasing nutritive value supports the recommendation of feeding high-quality hay.
“However, there must be a balance between optimizing quality, quantity and cost when producing hay,” Wickersham said. “These observations from the studies clearly demonstrate the value of purchasing and marketing hay based on nutritive value.”
Wickersham said a hay test can provide information on both crude protein content and forage digestibility, if requested. He advised ranchers to test their hay to get a more accurate gauge as to how much supplement and what type of supplement to purchase and feed.
“Producers with higher-quality hay may want to look at lower-priced energy supplements and reducing hay availability as a means of conserving forage, reducing cost and maintaining body condition score,” Wickersham said. “With the current hay prices, you don’t want to give them unlimited access to hay. You don’t want to put 10 bales out and come back 10 days later.”
In contrast, Wickersham indicated that producers with lower-quality hay will need to pay attention to providing a supplement with adequate levels of both energy and protein. In either case, a producer can make a much better decision with information on hay nutritive value.
Additionally, bulk feeds can be an efficient method of feeding cow herds, but you have to have infrastructure in place to do this or evaluate the cost of adding this capacity, Wickersham said.
“Drought demands that producers find the cheapest source of energy they can realistically handle and safely feed,” he said. “Unfortunately, cheap is more than it used to be.”
Checkoff Dollars Should be Distributed More Fairly
Among Livestock Groups
The National Farmers Union (NFU) and a coalition of organizations sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to take steps to make funding for the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) more transparent and to ensure that more voices are heard when distributing checkoff dollars, the organization said Thursday. The letter came as a result of a Sept. 27 meeting of 10 agricultural organizations in Minneapolis.
“It is the recommendation of this group that seats be made available on all Joint Checkoff Committees for one representative from each national nonprofit industry-governed organization that would qualify as a checkoff contractor and desires to have a representative on the committee,” the coalition wrote. “These committee members would be allowed to engage in all deliberations of the committees; but would not have a vote on motions brought before the committee.”
Shrinking herd sizes have decreased the amount of checkoff dollars available. Checkoff money is used for promotional and research purposes within the livestock industry.
“This letter and the Sept. 27 meeting represent good first steps for making the checkoff process more transparent and ensuring more voices are included in those decisions,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “We would have liked to have seen even stronger recommendations to ensure that every livestock organization has a voice at the table and has an opportunity to receive checkoff dollars. Fewer and fewer organizations have access to that money now, which hurts the livestock industry as a whole. The industry would be best served to ensure that the interests of all livestock organizations are considered, and not just a few.”
The October Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA eMailed Today
This month’s Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA “Front Page” carried the following stories:
- Angus Board Approves Long-Range Strategic Plan
- Association Perspective: Now is the time to consider vaccinations, marketing opportunities and bull care.
- Freeze-branding
- A Must Read: Proposed regulations could mean big changes for farm youth labor.
- Why Do They Value the Land?
- International Partners Improve Cattle Here and in South Africa
- Protect Your Vision
If you’re not receiving this free, electronic, monthly news source, sign up at www.angusbeefbulletin.com. We’ll send you a link to the October newsletter once you’ve signed up.
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