A farm without a tractor. Some of the fences could use a bit of work. The cows have been known to eat thistles. And the farmer doesn’t hesitate to say “this really didn’t work out the way I planned.”
So could a person trust any advice from this operation?
If it was any place other than Grant Lastiwka’s cow-calf operation east of Innisfail, Alta., your doubts might be justified. But with more than 35 years as an Alberta beef and forage extension specialist who has preached the gospel on proper pasture and forage management across the country, Lastiwka is indeed a trusted source when it comes to the best practices for managing pastures and grass.
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He doesn’t really preach; it’s more about freely sharing his experience and knowledge, but he also knows how to listen. It’s clear that he is a serious student of a host of mentors and peers — researchers and farmers alike — who have developed strategies and practices that optimize forage production, contribute to soil health and hopefully, improve the economics of putting more pounds of beef on cattle.
With his farming operation always in the background, Lastiwka for many years worked as a pasture/forage/beef specialist with Alberta Agriculture. More recently, he serves as a forage specialist with the Applied Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA), as well as a forage specialist with the Alberta-based seed company Union Forage.
Last fall, Lastiwka was planning to host a field day organized by the central Alberta Grey Wooded Forage Association to talk about forage and pasture management during dry or drought conditions. The field day got cancelled for a couple of reasons, but I scheduled a visit to the Lastiwka farm, looking to gather a few tips about pasture management during a dry year, just in case 2022 or other future growing season has limited rainfall.
A lifelong living lab
Over the years, Lastiwka’s small cow-calf operation has been a ‘“living lab,” long before that term became popular in research circles. “I’ve spent a lot of time and money over the years trying out different components of what I have learned,” says Lastiwka. “And I have learned a great deal, but I often say to people ‘do as I say. not as I do.’ I probably make more mistakes than anyone. But I believe it is important to try out different ideas to see if they work. I’m on the go with a lot of projects other than the farm so sometimes I just don’t have time to do things the way I’d like. “
Lastiwka earned his Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from the University of Alberta, is active in and a member of a number of professional and producer boards and associations, and in 1994 he completed a Holistic Resource Management Course which he says changed the way he strategically plans and makes business and life decisions.
Lastiwka and his wife Della have their home on a 152-acre farm about 15 minutes east of Innisfail. The farm has rolling topography and a decent layer of black topsoil, although at about two feet you hit sandstone. This spring, Lastiwka is down to calving out about 43 head of mostly Luing-cross cattle. He figures it is a feed-efficient breed well suited to their year-round grazing operation that includes spring, summer and fall on pasture, and bale grazing in winter. Cow numbers were downsized a couple of times in the past year due to reduced forage production during a dry growing season.
So what are some of Lastiwka’s messages about forage and grass management, preparing for farming challenges, and life in general?
Control what you can
“Farming can certainly be challenging and sometimes be overwhelming,” he says. “So it is important to change what we can and have a sense of control which helps us feel positive. We can’t control the moisture, for example, so focus on what can we control.”
He says it is important to look at forage production and grazing management with both short- and long-term plans.
The longer-term plan involves steps to improve soil health. The idea is to make the soil more productive, more resilient and better able to handle dry conditions. If the soil has improved water-holding capacity, that moisture is available during dry conditions. “When the environment turns against us we have some risk management in place,” Lastiwka says.
One part of his long-term plan is to develop forage stands with greater biodiversity — different species of plants with different growth habits. That includes a three-way mix of species such as bunchgrasses with good rooting systems, creeping grasses that provide ground cover to help protect the soil and reduce evaporation, and deep-rooted crops such as legumes that create “highways” for moisture and nutrients deep in the soil, that often can fix nitrogen in the soil as well.
Managing forage stands is a fluid situation that’s an ongoing learning experience affected by the amount of grazing season moisture, grazing pressure, winterkill and the natural life cycle of some forage species. Lastiwka’s pastures include a variety of species, always in a state of transition.
Depending on the pasture, species can include meadow brome, timothy, orchard grass, alfalfa, sanfoin, cicer milkvetch, birdsfoot trefoil, kura clover, Kentucky bluegrass, quackgrass and even thistles. (More about how thistles fit in a bit later.)
Some short-term planning
Short-term drought management involves applying management practices that will have near-term benefits, and often involves making decisions daily.
“The cattle have to be somewhere, so we have to decide how many and how long they stay in any one area to achieve our goals and not limit present and future opportunities,” Lastiwka says.
That means ensuring cattle have good feed and maintain a decent body condition, but at the same time you don’t want to hammer pastures to extend the grazing season at the risk of having winterkill or a poor stand the next year. In a dry growing season like 2021, Lastiwka says cattle were often moved to a new area daily to allow a grazed area to recover as best it could with limited rainfall.
It is important to allow different forage species to mature and set seed, which helps to reseed the pasture. He also had to think ahead to the next season and plan areas where he could stockpile forage in the fall of 2021 so cattle could get back to grazing earlier in the spring of 2022. The objective was to quit grazing when plants still had at least two or three green leaves collecting solar energy so they could put down root reserves that will give them a vigorous start next spring.
Last fall, Lastiwka had to do two things he wasn’t expecting. He had to begin bale grazing sooner than planned, and recognizing that feed was in short supply, he further downsized his cow herd.
He sold 14 head of bred cows in December which was a painful move since they only brought about $500 per head. “But the adage applies that the first loss is your best loss,” says Lastiwka.
It could have been worse. Keeping those cows might have led to hammering pastures harder in the fall, eliminating stockpiled forage and perhaps damaging plants so there were fewer or weaker desirable species for next year’s pasture. The other option was to keep that 14 head and probably clean out his entire baled feed inventory.
Lastiwka buys all his winter feed, including good-quality hay, greenfeed and straw bales. He managed to line up extra bales in March and April of 2021, expecting with a dry growing season it might be needed this winter. Now that he’s bale grazing cattle this winter, he’s also thinking about this year — what if it’s dry again? Feed will likely be even more expensive — if it can be found at all.
So he is managing this winter’s bale grazing program as efficiently as possible. He fed good-quality hay during the cold snap, but as it warmed up he could feed more straw and still keep cattle in good condition. “So if I can save a bale or two or three or whatever here and there and still keep a smaller cow herd in good condition, that is feed I don’t need to buy for next winter, “ he says.
Along with thinking ahead and managing feed supplies, another short-term decision that helps during dry years involved improving dugout capacity. Lastiwka says the opportunity came along a couple of years ago to deepen dugouts on pasture he was renting, which really paid off a year or so later. “It was a poor year for moisture so I figured it would be a good time to redo those dugouts before a bad year showed up. Now that decision makes me look like a real genius, because we would have been out of water on those pastures if we hadn’t made those improvements. But we live in an area where drought cycles are to be expected. We need to watch for warning signs be thinking ahead.”
Thistles and no tractors
Lastiwka hasn’t had a tractor on the farm for several years. He did years ago, but when applying some of the holistic management principles to the farm, he looked at the cost of maintaining a used tractor it just didn’t pencil out.
“Three years in a row we spent about $3,000 per year, or close to $10,000, on repairs for an older tractor. And when we looked at the economics for our small operation that didn’t make sense. So we don’t own a tractor. That doesn’t mean on another farm it doesn’t make sense, but for us it didn’t work.”
So as part of being tractorless, Lastiwka buys all feed for winter bale grazing. Bales are strategically placed when delivered to the farm, and then with a combination of hot wire and rolling bale feeders that are moved from one bale to another, he limits cow access to feed over the winter. Bale grazing sites are varied, moved to different pastures where the soil could use improvement from manure.
He buys both higher- and lower-quality feed that can be fed at different times to different classes of animals and usually that includes straw. So how does that connect with thistles?
He does a feed analysis on the straw so he knows how it fits with the nutrient requirements for his cow herd. But after bale grazing the straw there can be a heavy residue left on the ground, it can lead to desirable grass species being choked out, which allows for weeds such as thistles to move in.
But Lastiwka found research that showed thistles have relatively good feed value and cows can be trained to eat them. It takes a bit of management over a few days, applying a reward system to the cows, but eventually they learn to like thistles.
“Part of the herd was on that patch of thistles for about a month, which is an indication of how many thistles there were,” says Lastiwka. “But the cattle did fine and hopefully the grazing will help control the thistle population.”
He says it wasn’t his plan to create a thistle weed patch, but it points to making the most of what you have to work with. “The objective is to have desirable and productive plant species, but it is always changing. Sometimes the most productive part of a pasture might be Kentucky bluegrass or quackgrass. So you make the most of it.”
Look after your personal well-being
One other important message Lastiwka has for producers is to look after themselves, their sense of well-being and their mental health. So what might that involve?
First of all manage, or change the things you can change and give yourself some sense of control. Feel good about that, because you’ve done the best you can.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. “If your fences aren’t perfect looking, for example, don’t worry about it,” says Lastiwka. “As long as it works for you that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter what someone else might think.”
And don’t isolate. Farming challenges can often seem overwhelming. Involve your spouse in the discussion or decision-making. Talk to other family members or close friends; you’ll find out you’re not alone.
“And make a point of getting away from things once in a while,” says Lastiwka. “That doesn’t mean you have to take a month-long holiday, but perhaps just make a point of getting away from the farm with the family for a weekend every so often. A change of scenery; think about something else. You can look at those challenges with a fresh perspective when you get home.”
