LazyWP said:
It was good to see you and Peach at the range tail gate Thursday. If you guys would like, I can come out and help you with some more plant ID. Its been years since I have done any of it in competition, but was amazed how much I remembered.
The grass meeting was interesting. You did a great job identifying the various plants. I have never known the proper names for grasses, but always took pride that I knew when I had some and when I didn't. :roll: :wink:
In these two pictures, you can see what we are up against in some of our north pastures. It just isn't good country. In the pasture where the pictures were taken, there is right at 1800 acres. We put 171 cow/calf pairs and 7 bulls in this pasture on June 15th. The pasture is already running short of grass, and probably the cattle should be moved. On the other hand, it would be hard to "hurt" the pasture because it doesn't amount to anything anyway. The pasture could be rested entirely for five years running, and it still wouldn't amount to anything. It boils down to the old phrase, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." The cattle grazing the pasture are all mature cows with heifer calves at their sides. Most of these heifer calves will be held over to breed next summer. If there were steer calves in this pasture that we would soon be selling, I would be more tempted to move the cattle sooner. Dad always said, "you will hurt a pasture before you will hurt the condition of the cattle." My thought at the moment is to leave these pairs for awhile longer, and go more by the condition of the cattle rather than the condition of the grass.