#76 Understanding Overgrazing and How to Prevent it

Hello, fellow ranchers and land stewards! I am Jim Elizondo from Real Wealth Ranching. Today, we're delving into a topic that lies at the heart of successful pasture management – overgrazing. Understanding what overgrazing is and learning effective strategies to avoid it is crucial for maintaining healthy, productive lands and thriving livestock. Join me as we uncover the ins and outs of overgrazing and equip ourselves with the knowledge to prevent its detrimental effects.

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 that you can implement right away and that will produce results almost immediately. Avoid overgrazing! This free guide is in PDF format and I made it very actionable and added several things to consider, when you start implementing it. I really want you to check it out and let me know what you think! Download it now at www.rwranching.com/pastures.

If you are ready we are going to start!
Defining Overgrazing. Let's start with the basics. What exactly is overgrazing? We'll explore the nuances of this term, breaking down the key elements that contribute to its occurrence and impact on your land and livestock.

Overgrazing is the grazing of a plant before it has fully recovered, depletes its energy reserves, and shortens its roots and its life.

This simple definition tells us that it is not the severity of a grazing episode but the recurrence of re-grazing before the plants have fully recovered! It’s like the example of one person walking for a bucket of water to the well every day for a year or 365 days: that person will create a path by the footsteps but, if 365 persons walk to the well in one day for water, a path will not be created! And there will be 364 days for the land to regenerate! Something similar would happen when considering how grass and livestock work together.

Forage plants developed to be severely grazed by herbivores, and then to have a long enough recovery period to fully recover! The only way for them to have enough time to recover completely is with a high harvest efficiency grazing that ensures your livestock do not return until the grass has fully recovered.

Overgrazing is what creates deserts, erosion, lowers organic matter in our soils, and creates the worst conditions in your pasture.

I know that we have been taught that grazing with too many heads of livestock is overgrazing, but that definition is wrong, and while we do not want thin or starving livestock, we sure want to prevent overgrazing.

We need to remember that set stocking creates the worst type of overgrazing as the livestock are repeatedly re-grazing the same best species until those best forage species die from exhausting their energy reserves. We absolutely need to stop setstocking livestock as a general practice! Understanding overgrazing's real definition will help us to avoid causing it, even at very high stocking rates, AND maintain our livestock in very good body condition!

How Overgrazing Happens, Overgrazing isn't an isolated event.

We'll dissect the reasons behind overgrazing – from inadequate rest periods to keeping too many groups of livestock with them staying for too long in a paddock– shedding light on its underlying causes.
Grazing a paddock severely, as if you cut hay, is not overgrazing, overgrazing is a consequence of poor grazing management practices where livestock are left in a paddock for too long or return to it too fast. Overgrazing effects are evident after many repeated episodes of livestock re-grazing plants that have not fully recovered. Then we can surely observe its bad consequences.

When we keep too many groups of livestock it becomes very difficult to avoid overgrazing and most people just give up and set stock them. This is the worst type of grazing as the forage plants will be grazed again and again until they are very weak and any short-term stress may kill them, a short drought, a hard freeze, a heat wave, etc.

Quick tip, do not mow a pasture after more than 4 days have passed since it was grazed as you may cut the young regrowth and that would be like overgrazing, weakening your grass plants.

The Toll of Overgrazing: Erosion and Soil Health Decline One of the immediate effects of overgrazing is soil erosion and degradation. When land degrades and converts into a desert, overgrazing is always the biggest cause. It's not something to be taken lightly. We'll uncover how constant re-grazing of plants leads to weakened plants that cannot feed soil life or build soil structure, impairing your land's long-term health. Strong forage plants have the ability to transform your soil with their strong roots and vigor.

Stunted Plant Growth and Forage Quality Reduction Overgrazing doesn't just harm the soil; it also directly affects your pasture's vegetation. We'll delve into how persistent too soon re-grazing or overgrazing inhibits plant regrowth, leading to reduced forage production and diminished quality – a double whammy for both livestock and land. Forage plants have a cycle of growth, the younger they are when grazed, the lower their production, the more mature they get before grazing the higher their productivity. Now, we do want quality in our grasses but when we keep grazing them before full recovery, all the time, their productivity will only be around one-fourth of potential, and weeds/brush will be able to invade and take their place.

How to break the cycle: Strategies to Prevent Overgrazing:

• High harvest efficiency grazing is a game-changer when it comes to avoiding overgrazing. We'll explore how this strategy promotes healthier pastures by giving plants adequate time to recover and ensuring animals fulfill their needs. High harvest efficiency grazing also removes the canopy or tatch which shades growing points and seedlings smothering them.
• Stockpiling grass as standing hay in área. Creating a large stockpiled area is crucial. Assessing the number of acres of stockpile relative to the number of heads you have can prevent overgrazing and overstocking , ensuring a harmonious balance between livestock and forage resources.
• Allowing Rest. Recovery periods for your pastures are like recovery days for athletes. We'll delve into the importance of giving plants time to fully recover, enabling them to develop strong root systems and bounce back after each grazing. Different grasses need different recovery periods. Important: plants only recover when growing conditions are suitable for growth not when they are not actively growing.
• Seasonal Adaptations. Nature operates on its own schedule, and your grazing management should reflect that. We'll explore how adapting your rest periods to seasonal changes and growth cycles can contribute to preventing overgrazing.
  Maybe at the start of the green season your grass will be ready to be grazed 25-35 days after growth starts, later it will take longer and then again it may rain and take less time. We need to know how to determine if a certain grass or forage specie is ready to be grazed. This impacts grass health, livestock health and soil health, it's a symbiosis between livestock-grass-soil which we need to orchestrate.
• Having your livestock graze strategically is another tool in your overgrazing prevention toolkit. We'll uncover techniques for managing animal movement to promote better regrowth and healthier pasture management. With the main objective being: to achieve a high harvest efficiency grazing with a high stocking rate without overgrazing!

Conclusion: As we wrap up our journey through the world of overgrazing, remember that healthy pastures are the foundation of a thriving ranch or farm. By understanding the causes and consequences of overgrazing and implementing smart grazing management practices, you're ensuring a sustainable future for both your land and your livestock.

Before I leave, I would like you to get your hands on this new and very useful PDF on improving your pastures now and for the future. In it I explain, step by step, how to use the mower to transform your landscape and how to avoid overgrazing your best forage species. We want to make the weeds and brush weaker and our best forage species stronger so that they in turn, transform your soils. You can download it at www.rwranching.com/pastures.

Until next time. Thank you for joining this important conversation. Here's to balanced grazing, healthier pastures, and a more sustainable agricultural future!