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Arkansas fall grass

R

Red Robin

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Messages
4,377
Location
8 mi S.E. of Harrison, Ar.
Here's a few pics from a couple weeks ago. It's darkened up some and grown since then but it's still a good fall. The cows do better for me in this fall grass than any other time of the year. The big cottonwood tree is in the bottom next to a creek . It's bigger than it looks . That's a two gallon (I think) water jug sitting in front of it . It had a bee hive in a low knot until last year. Now the knot hole has grown closed and you can't tell anything was ever there. The date is wrong on the camera of course.
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That's a lot of grass. I never see that much grass this time of year. Looks like you need some gain cattle.
 
Thanks Charlie. Yes, the timber will be in a blaze of glory in another couple of weeks. The air here will smell like soured oak leaves and wood smoke. I like this time of year.

Yes Texan it's different in the fall than bermuda. We combined seed then cut hay on those fields a couple of months ago and sold most of it. I'll rotate my cows through those fields as they wear another field out. I will also run my stockers till late spring or till I need the money which ever comes first. I also have a few stockers from the neighbors to run till spring and one set of heifers I'll breed then send home. I hope to not feed much hay and I don't think i'll have to unless it's a hard winter. I think I have enough hay either way.
 
Great pics Red Robin, thanks so much for sharing them. That fescue is something...combine seed off of it, hay it, then graze it...what a deal! This year we'd been happy to have any of the three options! That is certainly how life goes, and I'm glad that you have had the moisture to have all three! Is getting three "cash crops" off that stuff normal?

If it weren't for the heat and humidity (and having Clinton as a native son :wink: ,) I'd suggest to Lazy Ace that we need to move to Arkansas. You have lots of okra, can get three crops off of one crop, and have mountains!!

Again, thanks for sharing...

Cheers---

TTB :wink:
 
Glad to see you pulled out of the dry summer.

We have a good start to our fall colors already. Have had a couple frosts but this weekend is supposed to be 30 something. I like the cold weather. It is refreshing.

And like Red Robin, our cows do well on fall pastures.
Thanks for the pictures RR.
 
TTB if you manage fescue right and have a normal year you can run less cows but more than make up for it with seed production and hay. You also have the option to gather up some stockers to run on the seed fields through the winter . For seed production you can graze fescue as hard as you like (the closer to the ground the better) from Nov. till March. You have to stay off of it from march till harvest. You can hay the remaining crop after harvest and before sept 15 or so. One has to fertilize quite a bit but if a crop failes or has price pressure the other two sure are nice to have . This year was a very good seed crop with record prices. The hay crop was good and because of the drought in Ok and Tx hay is scarce so the price was good there. Lastly cattle prices remain good so it's an unusual year.
 
Mike said:
RR, Have you ever had your fescue tested for endophytes?

Just wondering...................
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No Mike I havn't. The better you fertilize fescue and the better you manage , the worse the endophyte is I think. It's just something we live with. One good thing is most of our cows were raised here and are more tolerant than those that aren't.
 
Red Robin said:
Mike said:
RR, Have you ever had your fescue tested for endophytes?

Just wondering...................
Click to expand...
No Mike I havn't. The better you fertilize fescue and the better you manage , the worse the endophyte is I think. It's just something we live with. One good thing is most of our cows were raised here and are more tolerant than those that aren't.
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A few years back, the West Alabama Experiment station ran an extensive test with several hundred bought stockers on infected fescue and ryegrass.

The calves on fescue gained less than half of what the calves on ryegrass gained with the exact same fertilization on both pastures.(for 6 months).

Everyone around here is plowing it up and replanting Max Q.

But if you ain't having problems I wouldn't change it either.
 
Last year on one field where I have 50%orchard grass and 50% or so endophye free fescue I had 20 steers gain 3lbs per day on grass and 5lbs of ddg. Pretty cheap gain. This year I'm running on endophyte so I expect less but am interested to see how much less.
 
Red Robin said:
Last year on one field where I have 50%orchard grass and 50% or so endophye free fescue I had 20 steers gain 3lbs per day on grass and 5lbs of ddg. Pretty cheap gain. This year I'm running on endophyte so I expect less but am interested to see how much less.
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How many of those steers were 3M sons? I'd be willing to bet that 3M had a lot to do with that gain too. :D
 
Great pictures, and yes, I'm jealous!! :D You should have happy cows. We'll be expecting pictures when the leaves change colors. From you too, Cert :P
 
Neat country RR. I am "green" with envy! It was a cool 21 deg. here this AM, with a dang brisk wind. I like the look of your place at the moment.

It is so neat to see all the different areas of North America. (So far anyway).
 

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