Hello, I am Jim Elizondo and you all are welcome to this podcast. It makes me very happy to see that more young people are getting involved in the fascinating world of regenerating the land with livestock. Farming without livestock is not sustainable and becomes dependent on costly inputs very fast! If we are serious about improving our land’s fertility and its natural productivity we need to include livestock in our land, and livestock that have their grazing correctly managed by us.
Before we start, I want to remind you that today I will be holding our free masterclass, "Triple your Stocking Rate with Lush Pastures and Thriving Livestock". It's time to transform your property with the lush pastures in fertile soil created by thriving livestock. This event is your ticket to making informed decisions that will revolutionize your grazed livestock enterprise. Prepare to witness improvements in both land health and productivity, save your spot by registering at www.rwranching.com/masterclass. We will have a class today at 6 pm central time and tomorrow at 12PM Central time. So make sure you register to get the Zoom link and be able to participate in the live Q&A session. Once again the link is www.rwranching.com/masterclass.
Today I want to explain and debunk another common myth people believe.
Some people are afraid that “Under the Total Grazing Program with longer rest periods their livestock will be grazing overmature grass all the time”.
All that I will be talking about today is considering a high to very high stocking rate which is what determines profits. If we do not maximize our profits we are doomed to as the cost of inputs keeps going up higher than the prices of livestock products. Increasing the stocking rate up to double compared to continuous grazing is not very much as continuous grazing is absolutely the worst type of management regarding grass productivity and soil health, we need much more, and we offer much more.
The first thing is to remember that the Total Grazing Program is a program, not an isolated grazing event, and considers the whole year, multi-year, and every day of the year. But it would be foolish to have our livestock grazing overmature grass in the green season. The green season IS when our livestock can and should have the best performance and body condition, so no under the total grazing program we do NOT graze overmature grass all the time. I am going to explain.
One of our main objectives is to minimize overgrazing, which is defined as the re-grazing of a plant before it has fully recovered; minimizing overgrazing creates strong and deep roots full of energy reserves which allows us to greatly increase grass or forage productivity.
Then, this higher productivity achieved by the lush and leafy regrowth will create better soil fertility! We know that plants create soil but we need to consider that green leaves create energy by photosynthesis while stems consume energy by respiring, the energy left in the plant after subtracting the energy consumed by stems is energy left for plant productivity and to improve the soil.
We know that increasing organic matter in our soil increases its fertility and productivity, right?
Yes! But we need to take it a little further; you see, there are two types of organic matter: one is fast cycling, like crop residues that only last from a few months to a few years and there is slow cycling organic matter that lasts over a hundred years. It is this last type of organic matter, the slow-cycling organic matter that is bound to minerals that gives our soil its true fertility and is what most farmers have been mining their soils. Now we know how to rebuild the levels of slow-cycling organic matter or humus in our soils!
Did you know that ALL of the world’s best soils were created under grasslands with herbivores? Yes! This is true, but how can we re-create those conditions that happened a long time ago, before man? By implementing the Total Grazing Program with Adapted Genetics and Selection of course!
But, many people need to understand a little more about what this program is about, and I understand that with many other people bringing objections to the discussion table.
If you are one of my students or have listened to my previous podcasts you may remember how other myths have been debunked: “Total Grazing doesn’t leave residual to protect the soil”.
In that podcast, I explained how we leave ample residual to protect the soil surface as we have a much higher pre-grazing mass by only grazing fully recovered plants. And how close together desirable plants per square yard with strong and deep roots protect the soil from erosion much better than litter.
Then in my last podcast, I addressed another myth that says
If I graze too hard I will degrade my land”
Because in the Total Grazing Program, we minimize overgrazing by only grazing fully recovered plants we produce much more per acre and our forage plants roots are deeper and stronger than under selective grazing.
I explained how we increase grass productivity by grazing fully recovered forage plants closer to the ground which gives a much higher leaf-to-stem ratio in the regrowth and how this higher production of leaves per acre is better not only for higher grass productivity and soil improvement but also for your livestock performances as leaves have much higher digestibility than stems. I also explained how all that I was talking about referred to a high to very high stocking rate which determines profits on a farm or ranch
Now we will address the “Under the Total Grazing Program with longer rest periods my livestock will be grazing overmature grass”
When you implement the Total Grazing Program to greatly increase your grass productivity while minimizing overgrazing at very high stocking rates you will experience that in the green season, grass growth greatly exceeds your livestock capacity to keep up with it.
This means that you will have excess growth of grass in that green season!
It doesn’t make sense to have your livestock consuming overmature grass when everything is green and growing right? No, we need our livestock consume as much green grass as possible to get their best performance possible! But, we need them to be in optimal health so that they can express their best performance.
Most grazing programs that use selective grazing tell ranchers to try to keep up with the excess growth by only grazing the tops. This will stop the grass from producing a seedhead, they say. What? Like if our main objective was to stop grass from producing a seedhead! No, we need to go much further, we need to imagine what is happening underground, at the roots, not only what we see above the soil surface.
What will happen when you follow their advice? First, your livestock will get scours in the early Spring when the fiber is lacking in the spring growth, then when they make a fast round over all your property and paddocks, they will re-graze the first paddock right? Well, I am sorry but that may cause overgrazing of that first paddock if you come back fast enough after selective grazing the tops off the rest of your paddocks.
To make matters worse, as the season advances, grass growth starts to slow down and you start consuming your grass lower each rotation: that is the exact definition of overgrazing: re-grazing a plant before it is fully recovered in roots energy reserves! What I just described is a typical rotational selective grazing program. And you may ask if selective grazing is so bad for the plant and for the land, how come they get better results than continuous grazing? I can answer that, they are comparing to the very worst type of grazing management possible; continuous grazing or set stocking
Under selective rotational grazing they give more rest to their paddocks than under continuous grazing, and that is better than no rest. But, we ALWAYS give adequate recovery periods to our grasses by minimizing overgrazing and creating a large area of stockpiled grass to use as a buffer when grass growth slows down. Implementing the total grazing program can increase your grass productivity up to 5 times just by minimizing overgrazing and increasing your harvest efficiency when grazing.
In the green season, we maintain your grass quality, for the size of your herd, so that it does not go mature, and on the rest of your property you stockpile, to use part of it as a buffer to use when grass growth slows down, and the rest you save for Winter and dry seasons to save on hay.
Sounds good?
We are going to cover this in the masterclass and share with you how you can implement the Total Grazing Program in your operation for this coming Spring. Now is really the best time to implement this program because you will get the most benefit right from the start and in the dry or Winter Season you will be getting even better results.
The class is free and it is live via Zoom. You have 2 options to choose from, one is today Tuesday, Feb. 27th at 6PM Central time and the next one is tomorrow Wednesday, Feb. 28th at 12PM Central time.
So sign up to save your seat at www.rwranching.com/masterclass. I will send you the Zoom link so you do not miss it. It truly will change how you see your grazing and how you can build more soil and more abundant leafy forage. So make sure you register to get the Zoom link to be able to participate in the live Q&A session. Once again the link is www.rwranching.com/masterclass.
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