Succession

[Northern Rancher]

I don't know if many of you have done much HRM stuff but one of the principles in Alan Savoury's book is succession. Basically it's how nature moves from bare ground back to forest. This pasture was bare ground-we seeded oats and fall rye-swath grazed the oats-grazed the rye the next spring then baled it later that summer. The next year was wet and we grazed a solid mat of weeds-if we would of charged our cows the going custom rate it generated $93/acre. After that we basically left it alone other than bale grazing on it in the winter and rotating cows through it during the grazing season. It actually gets overused a bit because it's handy to the corrals. As you can see it's progressed into a productive grass stand.

 

[Soapweed]

That grass stand does look thick and luscious. Good job on renovating it from bare ground.

 

[Northern Rancher]

It's easy to be a good steward of the land when it rains-we get soo much daylight this time of year stuff really grows well. You can see dandilions where we never balegrazed. If I could curtom winter a 1,000 or so cows I could triple my summer carrying capacity pretty easy.

 

[Angus 62]

So NR you are basically saying that piece of land returned to productive grass by increasing the fertility with grazing?

 

[Northern Rancher]

It's pretty good ground to start with I'm saying it did with no purchased inputs.

 

[PATB]

Winter bale grazing does wounders for subpar grass stands in a couple of years. The manure and extra organic material makes a world of difference in pasture establishment or rennovation.

 

[Big Swede]

Was the grass seed in the soil and if so what kind of grass is it? I read Savory's book, I'm a big fan.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Not even sure what grasses are all out there-it had been farmland for quite awhile-probably mostly quackgrass.

 

[flyingS]

NR did you take HRM training or have you just been studying it. I took a class through Roland Kroos from Billings. Pretty amazing what you can do when you open your mind.

 

[Angus 62]

I'm struggling with a piece of ground that was plowed out of meadow thirty years ago. To make the situation worse it was leveled [with the help of the government :x] for irrigation without enough water to make it work. I'm afraid that we don't get enough rain [14 inches a year] to ever see it go back to grass on its own in my lifetime.

Last year was the first year in eight that wasn't some stage of drought and managed to get grass started on some of it. The bad spots I'm going to try and feed over this winter and throw some seed down.

 

[Dylan Biggs]

It's easy to be a good steward of the land when it rains-we get soo much daylight this time of year stuff really grows well. You can see dandilions where we never balegrazed. If I could curtom winter a 1,000 or so cows I could triple my summer carrying capacity pretty easy.

Looking good NR! Good Job! And you are right about the rain.

 

[Northern Rancher]

I doubt that piece of ground has averaged much more rain than that since we started the experiment-we had some bad drought along the way. Bale grazing would probably work better yto rejuvenate it than just feeding over it. I took an HRM course a long time ago but don't adhere to some of the principles with some of the fervour others do. Being really cheap and hating equipment helps-some of the bigger ranchers up here have done amazing things through grazing and winter feeding management.

 

[Angus 62]

I like bale grazing all right but it takes a LONG time to break down mats of forage in an arid environment. I have had bales that were missing strings left in a field that I could tell where they had been for years later. Unrolling bales of coarse feed gets it incorporated in the ground as they will stomp on some of it to help break it down.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Where it gets thick I put my salt in the middle of it.