Hello, fellow ranchers and land enthusiasts! I am Jim Elizondo from Real Wealth Ranching and I’m here to make your ranch or farm life better. Today, we are embarking on an enriching journey to enhance your pasture improvement, exploring the power of effective mowing, mastering the ability to stop overgrazing, and uncovering the secrets to make your pastures great, now and in the long run.
Before we start, I want to let you know that I have created a new guide for you showing you how to improve your pastures long-term in 2 easy steps. It is free and you can download it at www.rwranching.com/pastures. Okay, let’s start.
Have you ever pondered what's holding back your forage production? Could it be the persistent presence of weeds and brush? Or perhaps it's the way you manage grazing? Or maybe a combination? As we step into this topic, we'll address these questions and open the door to comprehensive solutions.
In the early days of my ranching journey, I encountered these challenges head-on. The pursuit of cost-effective alternatives to tackle these issues led me to an eye-opening revelation: our livestock could play a significant role in restoring the health of both grass and soil. The use of chemicals offered short-lived results, but I knew there had to be a more sustainable way forward.
After using herbicides, I found out that I was only addressing symptoms (weeds/shrubs) but not their root cause. And after the herbicide effect wore off, the weeds/shrubs returned stronger than ever! And after some time those problems would become even worse.
Do you feel overwhelmed by seeing your pastures full of weeds that are crowding your best forage species out? I know the feeling, it means lower forage or grass productivity per acre as weeds suck the moisture, and nutrients and compete for sunlight. Not making me happy!
I've learned so much from smart ranchers and good books. Let's use their tips to make your pastures the best they can be. Some of them gave me direct advice and some wrote very good books or articles that helped me understand better, my hat off to them.
We will consider two easy steps that will improve your pastures long term:
These two steps are very simple and will improve your pastures now and in the future but many people do not follow them.
I learned that mowing can be used effectively to control weeds/shrubs and greatly increase your forage production, but the mowing has to be done correctly to give the most benefits. Beyond aesthetics, mowing can be a potent tool for reshaping your pasture's landscape. We'll explore how well-executed mowing can address weed and plant growth, fostering healthier grasses and forage while keeping problematic plants at bay.
After a lot of learning and trying things out, I found ways to really make our pastures awesome.
Mowing is an Art and Science: Let’s talk about The Right Way to Do It!
Mowing isn't just about cutting grass; it's about strategically managing your landscape. Discover the techniques and methods that can ensure mowing becomes a transformative force on your ranch, resulting in thriving pastures that benefit both livestock and land.
Those stubborn weeds? They're taking up the space and food your grass needs. Let's kick them out and make space for more and better quality grass.
On a ranch near Katy, TX they had grazed continuously for many years and weeds had taken over the whole pasture. We started mowing to control the weeds and to allow sunlight to reach the grass. At first, the weeds were strong and vigorous, but after the second mowing, the grass was stronger and the weeds were weaker. After the third mowing that year, there were little weeds and a much higher production of grass. We achieved this without any herbicides or synthetic fertilizers, only with the judicious use of the mower and correct grazing management. We also did it with double the normal stocking rate! More grass and more livestock!
Depending on the degree of invasion of weeds in your paddock, the reduction in forage production can be 10% to 90%. Plus, when weeds and shrubs are strong from years of them not being cut, when we finally mow them they will have vigorous regrowth. Any plant that is not consumed by your livestock is a weed and some can also be brush or young trees.
Now, there are many alternatives to controlling weeds and shrubs in your paddocks but most of the ones advertised in magazines involve the use of herbicides. The use of herbicides means that soil life will be killed or at least damaged. I much prefer to have a high level of soil life and wildlife in my farm than to use herbicides. Sure, chemicals work, but let's be nice to the land. We'll find ways to say goodbye to weeds without harming your soil.
Any time I can choose between using chemicals to solve a problem or solve it with low-cost biological methods, I will choose low-cost biological methods, because they will enhance soil life which is all important for continuing the improvement of your soils.
Let me tell you the secret: We can control weeds and shrubs with mowing and correct grazing management! At the end, I will give you the link to download my guide with a breakdown of these two steps.
Picture your pastures like a big competition place for plants, where each wants to dominate the others to push them off your pasture. Why is this competition so important? Because our management, and mowing, will determine which type of plants will dominate our pastures.
We know that our livestock consume our best forages preferentially and reject weeds and brush. The weeds and brush that your livestock reject have a very long rest period which allows them to grow strong, deep, and fat roots. This makes them very vigorous and resilient. But, did you know that you can reduce their vigor by repeatedly mowing them? This creates the equivalent of overgrazing the weeds and shrubs and they will become weaker as they require a very long recovery period. Of course, there are different weeds in different environments but the principle stays true, do not allow your weeds to regain strength by giving them rest or they will grow strong and deep roots again.
Now, let’s talk about grass or your best forage species which are competing with weeds for resources. We need to make them stronger, by giving them long rest periods, so they can displace the weeds from your pastures. It is a competition that occurs above and below ground. Above for sunlight, and below for nutrients and moisture.
When the best forage species, that your livestock prefers, are grazed preferentially and maybe re-grazed too soon, their roots will get shorter and they will become weaker, allowing the weeds and shrubs to displace them. This is the main reason that weeds and shrubs take over a paddock in most environments.
We know now, that when grass is growing fast, the regrowth can be bitten off when we leave livestock for more than 4 days in a paddock. This will create overgrazing by the livestock regrazing the regrowth, and sometimes we leave our livestock there for a month or two! Talk about debilitating our best forage species roots! This means that we need to do the opposite to create strong and deep roots in our preferred forages so that they regain their vigor.
Here is the secret: if we leave our livestock no longer than 3 days in a paddock, mow low immediately after the livestock have consumed the grass and moved to the next paddock, and allow a long enough recovery period for the forage plants to fully recover after that, we will be able to reduce the vigor of the weeds/shrubs while increasing the vigor of our best forage species! We want to make our best forage species strong and vigorous and our weeds/shrubs weak!
So, here are the steps to take when mowing to control weeds/shrubs in your paddocks:
Okay, mowing helps to control weeds and shrubs. And I have done this for many many years with success, and without using any poisons on the land. But, what about regaining vigor and deep roots in your preferred forage species? How do we get that much higher forage productivity?
We will explore how well-managed grazing can restore plant vigor, create resilient pastures, and elevate your ranch’s overall productivity. Picture your ranch as an intricate ecosystem. Learn how your livestock can become active participants in controlling weeds and brush, forming a symbiotic relationship that amplifies your efforts. After we control the weeds and shrubs our forages will start producing much more due to less competition with weeds, but we want more, we want our forages to bloom into super productive and lush pastures!
Imagine mowing plus happy animals – they make a super team that beats weeds. Get ready for a total pasture makeover!
A big area of opportunity I encounter in most places is that: Most people overgraze, unknowingly, by keeping too many small groups of livestock in their farm.
Overgrazing is defined as: returning to re-graze a plant before it has fully recovered and having too many groups of livestock will make it very difficult to avoid overgrazing, and we know this will greatly reduce our forage or pasture productivity.
I had a student who had too many groups of livestock on his farm. I explained to him that he needed to consolidate them all into one larger group to give enough rest to the whole property and to greatly reduce his workload. At first, he didn’t want to do it and gave me all the very important (to him) reasons of why it was necessary to keep 6-8 groups of livestock on his farm. He wanted to know who the sire was of every calf, he wanted to supplement one group more than the other, he wanted to have heifers separated from mature cows, and he wanted to have finishing animals all by themselves. That gives us many groups, which in the end, were set stocked on one paddock for each group without rotating them. This is the worst type of grazing non-management, leaving them in a paddock for a long long time.
I explained that under setstocking the grass is continually overgrazed by the livestock and productivity will only get to 25% of potential! What could you do with a 4 times increase in grass productivity by stopping overgrazing on continuous grazing? Having one to two groups of livestock will help us to improve our pastures now and in the future while making your life easier. Eventually he consolidated all the different groups in one and now he is able to rotate them around his farm without leaving them for too long in a given paddock and without overgrazing, with the result that even in a very bad drought he is able to have ample forage supply for his livestock while his neighbors, who insisted on maintaining many different groups of livestock, ran out of forage and started feeding hay, precisely due to overgrazing!
Overgrazing creates short and weak roots, and whenever there is a drought, those short and weak roots cannot reach moisture which is deeper by then.
We need to consider the following when putting all our livestock together:
I have another student who now has gone through a D3 drought without having to destock or feed hay thanks to following these simple two steps. Her neighbors did not change their ways and lost the opportunity to improve their pastures and drought-proof their farm. You do not want to be left behind on this one!
Now that you know these 2 steps and how they can greatly increase your grass productivity and land, you might be thinking; if only I had a written step-by-step plan to follow and have success!
I have created a free guide that you can follow, with all the necessary and very important considerations to improve your pastures for now and for the future! Make sure you download it at www.rwranching.com/pastures
Your free PDF of How to improve your pasture long term in 2 easy steps. The sooner you start on these 2 easy steps, the sooner you will see a drastic improvement in your pasture health, livestock, and soil life!
Once again, it is www.rwranching.com/pastures.
Well, Thank you for joining me on this enlightening exploration of pasture improvement. Here's to revitalized pastures, thriving livestock, and the enduring success of your ranching endeavors!
May God bless you all.
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