“We are extremely disappointed by PMRA’s decision and ask them to reconsider this decision,” David Marit, Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister, said in a news release.

“We need a federal regulatory system that considers economic impacts felt by producers and the realities on the ground.”

Alberta’s Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson, in a separate statement, said he’s also “deeply disappointed” in the PMRA’s decision and called on the PMRA to reinstate the product’s use for farmers.

The annual risk to hay and native pastures from RGS runs above $800 million and “the risk of this exploding RGS population is detrimental to farms and ranches across the country,” he said.

On Oct. 1, 2025, Saskatchewan Agriculture partnered with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation to submit an emergency use request for two per cent liquid strychnine for management of RGS.

The rodent has been growing in population for the last few years and has shown no sign of slowing down.

The submission was a response to concerns from producers and industry about the on-farm efficacy of other registered products for the control of the pest, following the ban of strychnine in March 2023.

Heath MacDonald, federal agriculture minister, had made a verbal promise to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities in October to support any emergency use applications. The PMRA, however, is not under the jurisdiction of the agriculture ministry.

The Saskatchewan government said it had included “robust, science-based and strengthened mitigation measures” in its proposal.

However, the PMRA said the methods used to prove necessity of strychnine were insuffient to mitigate an acceptable level of risk, which prompted the denial of emergency use.

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Of course, as I write this, I must acknowledge that within the past 24 hours, we’ve received nearly five inches of heavy rain and hail. I’m not sure if I should rejoice by listening to my winter cereals germinate, or if I will gleefully torch a tumbleweed, but our municipal fire ban is still in effect, so I’ll be mindful of my celebrations.

In reality, farmers and ranchers everywhere are somewhere on the continuum of experiencing severe drought or being submerged in unwanted water. Every region has unique challenges, and every farm business has its goals and objectives.

How you approach drought, flood or any disaster in between will depend on a lot of factors. Are you just starting out as a farmer or are you winding down your operation? What is your appetite for risk? What are your strengths? What are your short-term workarounds and what are your long-term goals? What will you do if the tough times last for six months…or six years? What will your cash flow needs be?

Ranching in a drier region, we are always somewhat expecting a drought, although the past seven years have been a longer dry spell than what we typically deal with.

Water is our major limitation, not just for forage crops and pastures, but particularly for stock water. Most of our pastures rely on dugouts for surface water, and when runoff is minimal and wind-fuelled evaporation is at its maximum, both quality and quantity plummet.

Fortunately, pumping from the water source using solar- or wind-powered pumps can dramatically extend the longevity of your water supply and help retain quality. You must check your pumps daily, but if you can extend your dugout by a few weeks, or even a few days, it’s often worth it. Trail cameras can also be useful for alerting you between checks.

If you find yourself hauling water to pastures, ensure you have adequate trough space for the herd and that one trough is low enough for calves to reach. Perhaps a big poly tank can be set up and filled to gravity-feed into troughs, to ensure a more consistent flow. Also, consider what infrastructure you may be tying up. For example, if you are hauling water with a semi, that may limit the job to one or two licensed operators and tie up equipment that could be used for other things…like hauling feed.

Test water and feed

In Saskatchewan, we are extremely fortunate to access water quality testing through our agriculture extension offices. We have a robust forage and livestock extension service that many other provinces envy, so I figure if they are willing to help, let’s capitalize on it.

Grassland and forages are the cornerstone of beef cattle production and stickhandling through drought becomes a function of managing inventories: how much grass, how much feed, and how many cattle.

Don Campbell, a well-known holistic management instructor and grazer, shared a Bud Williams quote with me: “You can never have too much money, you can never have too much grass, but you can have too many cattle.”

Those words have stuck with me. When things are uncertain, we use our yearlings as a flex herd and can retain or sell them as needed or as the season progresses.

We’ve had to expand our definition of “feed,” but in doing so, I want to emphasize that you must feed test to prevent a wreck. We’ve fed a variety of crops and byproducts and have worked with a nutritionist to help us make confident choices. Using a custom-made mineral program has helped us offset any feed or water quality concerns.

While we’ve grown some good intercrops and continue to look into novel forages, we tend to safety up and stick with tried-and-true crops for our farm such as fall rye that we can use for grazing, baling, silage or combining.

Raising a living commodity gives beef producers a different sense of responsibility and urgency. We don’t worry about bushels of grain the same way we worry about meeting the needs of our herd. That accountability can fuel innovation, resourcefulness and empathy and can bring out the best in people when you need it most.

The relationships we forged and maintained through some of our hardest times, and the people who shared an encouraging word or idea, something we try to pay forward, have been a blessing.

When the wind stops blowing and the dust settles, it’s not government programs or feed or even five inches of rain that will pull you through tough times, it is people.

The post Prepare your ranch and business plan for bouts with drought appeared first on Grainews.

Don is the third generation of his family in that region and says holistic management has made a big difference in his success as a farmer. He took his first course with Allan Savory at Bismarck, N.D.

“That was a life-changing event. I came back to the ranch and tried to do some of the things he talked about, but it was very intense — five and a half days of lecturing — and you don’t retain 100 per cent.”

Since then, Don has taken two more courses and has helped Ralph Corcoran (a certified educator from Saskatchewan) present a course.

“The last course I took was in our local area, to meet with like-minded people who understood what I was doing and have someone to bounce ideas off and get feedback,” Don says. “We formed a club, and for about 15 years met once a month.”

His parents were supportive of what he was trying to do, even though they didn’t always understand it. After his father passed away, his mother said he’d told her, “I don’t have a clue what he’s doing, but he seems to be making headway.”

Change can be hard if a person has always done things a certain way, but holistic management enabled Don to improve his pastures and run more cattle. He was one of the first ranchers in his area to start bale grazing and winter cows out on pasture.

“I worried that somebody would report me for cruelty to animals because they didn’t know what I was doing, but now some of the guys in our neighbourhood who probably thought I was off my rocker back then are feeding their cows out on the land and achieving some of the same goals.”

Boosting yield

The Guilfords’ approach allows them to put nutrients back on the land and improve the soil. Don puts bales very close together on a piece of ground he wants to improve, so it gets covered with litter and manure. The bales are only 25 to 30 feet apart, which gives an even covering. On one piece he had 750 bales on 15 acres, completely covering it.

Rejean Picard, from Manitoba Agriculture, did soil sampling at the site before and after the bales were put there.

“One year later, we’d increased our yield on that field by 10-fold. Plus, we haul hay straight from the hayfield in July — to where we plan to bale graze — so we only handle the hay once.”

This practice reduces the cost of harvest and winter feeding. Don and his wife could move electric fences and feed 200 cows in 20 minutes, for one week.

READ MORE: Lessons in cow economics learned in the field

“We experimented on how often to let the cattle into a new batch of bales. We tried three days, a week, two weeks, and a month,” Don says. “Even letting them have an area for a month, from what the cows would normally eat in a bale feeder in the corral, we wasted the equivalent of only one or two bales and didn’t use any diesel fuel for feeding.”

The approach has saved money and created more productive ground. In doing so, they have increased the number of cows per quarter.

“Ten more cows is a 33 per cent increase in number, plus adding the length of grazing has given us about twice the amount of grazing, on the same land. This makes the land more profitable. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be looking for more land or spending money for more hay.”

Importance of budgeting

Don and Diane have continued with holistic management, not only because it has improved their land but also because this method of record-keeping enables them to know if they are making headway or going backward.

The cattle business, of course, isn’t easy. Many Canadian ranchers faced a tough time getting through the BSE crisis. “Bankers were watching us carefully. We’d done our holistic budgets and plans for the year, and the bank was making life difficult for us,” Don recalls. “At that time we had 300 cows and in 2003 the market was so terrible (due to BSE) that we kept all our heifers.”

The next two years were no better, so they kept them all again, and got to the point where they bred 605 cows.

“We were stretching our pasture resources and buying hay,” Don says.

“At that point we quit the Royal Bank and went to the credit union to see if they were interested in doing our loan. They had us fill out a line of credit and I asked if they wanted to see our bookkeeping.”

Don showed them the ranch’s numbers, including operating needs for each month of the year — something the credit manager said they were the first to do. The lender wanted clients who knew their operation well enough to predict what they were going to make and what it would cost. Holistic management can help guide people through the tough times, and in the good times create a higher level of profit.

This budgeting gave Don more confidence. “You think you can make it, but you aren’t sure. Once you do a budget you know you can make it. You might not make much profit, but you know you are in the black. When I got a semi-load of feed that cost 10 grand, I was comfortable writing the cheque because I knew I could pay for it,” he says.

“Holistic management has made a huge difference in our lives, helping us get through BSE and other challenges. After a 15-year grind we came out on the other side with more cows than we went into it. I told my banker the only way we both would come out ahead was if I had inventory when prices recover. We lived on a tight budget, but doubled our cow herd during BSE when many people were selling cows at low prices. When prices came back, we sold cows for $2,700 that the bank valued at $800.”

Many people sold cows to try to retain the same amount of gross income and got farther behind, but Don and Diane were keeping replacements, doubling their stocking rates with bale grazing, and making progress. In 2006, though, they decided they had to sell some cows.

“We were running out of pasture, and dry-lotted 100 cows on 50 acres all summer,” Don says. “It was hard on the land, but the cows did well; we fed raw screenings and straw along with the pasture… We sold those cows in Swift Current, and they did well, on very cheap feed.”

Looking ahead

The long-term effect of holistic management has greatly improved the farm. The 1,200 acres will easily handle 250 cows and 50 replacement heifers, and still have hay ground. “This is our goal if our grandson comes back to ranch,” Don says.

A person spends a lifetime building a place and good cattle and hopes family will carry on, he says. “You have to enjoy it, however. We would never have made it through BSE if we didn’t like what we were doing. At my age (74), people ask why I don’t quit, and I tell them I like what I’m doing and it gives me a reason to get up in the morning.

“If our grandson comes back, Diane and I can keep doing it longer.”

Their grandson is currently working toward a diploma in agriculture and hopes to come back full-time.

“I’d like for him and me and Diane, and maybe his mother, to take a week-long course in holistic management. The value in that is we all sit down together and set personal goals and ranch goals — what we want to be and do — along with financial plans. It’s important to all be on the same page in terms of our expectations.”

The post Redefining a ranch appeared first on Grainews.

Throughout the growing season, as interesting plants pop up in ditches, fields and pastures, I get texts, tweets and messages with photos of mystery plants from friends requesting identification. “Is this a good plant? Is it a weed? Does it grow here often? Is it toxic?”

My interest in plant identification started young with my mom, a former ag rep and agrologist, who is the original plant ID matriarch of the family.

As a kid, I remember neighbours and even strangers dropping by with puzzling plants for her to look at. I learned from her that the right plants can add beauty and bucks, but the wrong ones can cost you money and a lot of grief.

When I got older, I gravitated toward summer jobs that leveled up my weed, forage and rangeland plant identification. I quickly learned there are a lot of identity-obsessed plant experts, and I’m fortunate to have an inner circle of plant gurus to lean on for more information.

Whether a plant is welcome or not will differ according to region, soil type and goals; what might be a preferred plant on one farm is a weed on another.

Farmers and ranchers spend a lot more time identifying plants than perhaps they realize. Plants provide us with many clues about what is happening on our land. For example, we use weed identification in our annual crops to determine potential problems, including herbicide resistance. Being aware of common weeds helps us decide which crop protection products to use.

The threat of invasive weeds has many farmers vigilant and on the lookout for infestations of leafy spurge, toadflax or scentless chamomile. Risks like the movement of feed, the use of equipment between “contaminated” sites and clean fields, and industrial development and construction can all lead to a productivity-sucking invasion. In this sense, accurate plant identification can be the difference between swift eradication and a costly, multi-generational fight against invasive weeds.

Of course, there are plenty of good plants to take note of, too. For example, some plants only grow in moist habitats and their presence can indicate pockets of sub-irrigation, making them helpful in deciding where to potentially source a new well or dugout. These riparian plants can also filter out sediment and nutrients, helping to improve standing water quality.

Plants are also a part of our culture, and we look to them to signal the beginning or end of seasons. The familiar ritual of seeking out a prairie crocus confirms the arrival of spring; the ripening of saskatoon berries is a summertime staple; and the turning of leaves on a dogwood or Manitoba maple is a beacon of colder weather.

My favourite group of plants are those that are native to our Prairie grasslands. These plants have spent the past 10,000 years (give or take) adapting to be resilient against whatever disturbance is thrown at them.

Range plants each occupy a different, valuable niche on the landscape. In addition to providing benefits such as forage, carbon sequestration and biodiversity, many range plants fix nitrogen, like one of our many native milkvetch species.

Other species, such as creeping juniper, reduce hillside erosion. Shrubs such as buckbrush and silver sagebrush help trap snow and provide habitat for songbirds. Winterfat, a beloved prairie shrub, looks similar to sagebrush but lacks the smell. It’s known as the “ice cream” species because it’s preferred by both livestock and wildlife, and its robust presence can be an indicator of a healthy prairie pasture.

There are several regional plant ID books and you can also find answers to plant questions at your local extension office. There is also a wonderful website that helpfully categorizes wildflowers according to colour.

The next time you see a plant that piques your interest, ask yourself why it might be there. What are our plants telling us about our environment?

The post Plants and their identity crises appeared first on Grainews.

Taking advantage of that natural behaviour, University of Wyoming scientists have devised a way to control grasshoppers on pastures with smaller volumes of pesticides.

The method is called Reduced Agent and Area Treatments (RAAT), in which farmers apply an insecticide to one strip on a pasture, leaving the adjacent strip unsprayed. That alternating pattern continues across the field, so only half the pasture receives insecticide.

The research shows it’s possible to reduce insecticide by 50 per cent and still kill most of the hoppers.

“You can get 80 to 90 per cent control doing this because grasshoppers do move around and some do move around quite a bit,” said John Gavloski, an entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture.

Gavloski shared information about the RAAT method during a Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture webinar on grasshoppers and grasshopper control earlier this spring. The basic idea is that grasshoppers will jump into the treated strips.

“The RAATs strategy is effective for grasshopper suppression because the insecticide controls grasshoppers within treated swaths while conserving natural grasshopper predators in swaths not directly treated,” says a U.S. Department of Agriculture report on grasshopper suppression.

The U of Wyoming scientist who did the research on RAATs provided a similar explanation to Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly publication in the state.

“RAAT takes advantage of the insect’s behaviour,” said Scott Schnell, in 2019. “Nymphs and adults alike move around a lot in search of food, so even if we don’t kill them with the initial application, they will likely move to a treated strip in search of food… Because they eat so much, they will likely consume a plant that has been sprayed.”

A U of Wyoming website explains how farmers can employ the strategy.

One option for spraying a pasture in alternating strips is with an ATV. The vehicles are well suited for the gopher holes and bumpy terrain of a pasture and can be equipped with a sprayer.

The U of Wyoming estimates this approach can reduce costs by 70 per cent compared to blanket coverage because it requires a smaller volume of insecticide and less time to spray the pasture.

Some Canadian ranchers may have experimented with RAATs to control grasshoppers on pastures and some farmers have also used the technique on annual crops, Gavloski said.

“I know, anecdotally, that people have been doing it in wheat, canola and some of our other crops… People think they get good results, but it hasn’t been researched in those crops.

“Unfortunately, this technique has only been (studied) in a pasture/rangeland situation. I’m trying to encourage our researchers to duplicate these experiments in some other field crops… in our Canadian Prairie conditions.”

During the webinar, Gavloski encouraged farmers to control grasshoppers early in the season. Waiting for them to develop into adults is a mistake.

“We don’t want you to get to that point that you’re trying to battle adult grasshoppers. The adult grasshoppers are moving around. You need higher rates… some products don’t work against them.”

A Manitoba Agriculture document contains more information on grasshopper monitoring and management.

It says the nymph stage is the optimal time to kill grasshoppers, before their wings develop.

“Insecticide applications are most effective and the costs are lower … while the nymphs are still concentrated in their breeding areas,” Manitoba Agriculture says.

“It is generally best to control grasshoppers when the majority are in the third to fourth nymph stages. The lowest dosage given on the insecticide label should be used when the grasshoppers are small and the vegetative cover is low.”

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A high-tech startup called Enriched Ag maintains there are fewer AI-powered tools available to ranchers, but it’s working to change that.

“Our current product offerings serve rangeland and pasture specifically, as we’ve felt these sectors are underserved in terms of advanced image analytics and machine learning-based solutions,” says Kalon Armstrong, Enriched Ag’s business development leader.

Founded in 2019, Enriched Ag is a business located at Billings, Mont., that is expanding into the Canadian market.

Armstrong, based in Calgary, says his company offers a trio of software and hardware platforms called Insights, Vision and RealTime that enables ranchers to better manage grazing practices on their land.

Billy Cook, vice-president of producer relations at Enriched Ag, notes the solutions are different than how many ranchers make their grazing decisions.

“From a forage management perspective, we have a dynamic tool, whereas most grazing management approaches are pretty static,” he says.

He adds the Enriched Ag solutions provides more flexibility since it allows users to examine and track numerous factors that influence grazing over time. Ranchers can then use this information to adjust their management decisions as needed.

Insights

Released by Enriched Ag in 2022, Insights is a software solution that relies on satellite imagery, site-specific weather information and complex data crunching to help guide ranchers’ decisions.

Data generated by Insights includes:

• Current and forecasted forage production and grazing information
• Optimal recovery periods for grazing areas that are pasture- and herd-specific
• Stocking recommendations
• Rainfall and water analytics
• Bare ground detection and tracking
• Sequestered carbon estimates

Armstrong notes Insights uses images from Sentinel-2 satellites operated by the European Space Agency, with the data typically updated every five to 10 days.

According to Cook, Insights can help producers cut costs through data-driven grazing rotation recommendations that potentially increase grazing days and reduce the need to buy supplemental hay to feed livestock.

“Enriched Ag Insights also provides early signals when forage production is abnormal, which gives ranchers a chance to make timely management decisions that include buying or selling cattle or purchasing hay or feed,” he says.

An Enriched Ag press release states Insights is being used by dozens of U.S. ranchers, who continue to provide valuable feedback to improve the platform. One of them is Bob McCan of McFaddin Enterprises at Victoria, Texas, who manages 13 cow-calf operations on three ranches with individual grazing systems.

In the release, McCan describes Insights as an innovative, user-friendly tool for managing forage volumes on specific pastures, fine-tuning grazing systems for better livestock nutrition and improving range conditions for cattle and wildlife.

“Knowing real-time forage volumes is incredibly valuable to managers like me, who are challenged with weather extremes and timing issues associated with cow-calf operations,” he said.

According to Armstrong, Enriched Ag’s Insights tool includes analysis of up to 10,000 acres of ranch land. It can be purchased on a subscription basis for US$50 per month.

Vision + Insights

Launched in 2023, Vision is a smart camera system that adds precise image analytics to Enriched Ag’s Insights platform.

Vision is comprised of a twin camera unit that can be mounted on ranch vehicles like trucks, tractors and UTVs. The cameras collect data at the same time producers are doing their regular drives checking pastures, water sources and livestock. Ranchers can also take point-of-interest photos with their own smartphones and upload them to the system.

“We’re not asking people to drive anywhere they wouldn’t drive otherwise,” says Armstrong. “They’re doing what they were already planning to do, and they’re going to have a huge trove of data.”

Once data is uploaded via Wi-Fi to Enriched Ag’s intelligent image library, machine learning techniques are used to identify, tag and quantify items such as forage heights, vegetation makeup, biodiversity, patches of bare ground and fences needing repair.

Ranchers can view and analyze the information on a dashboard device to help inform decisions on matters such as grazing strategies, erosion control, invasive weed management, herd management and improving animal health.

When producers make changes to improve their operations, the combined Insights and Vision system enables them to see how those changes are reflected over time and quantify the outcomes of their management decisions.

Armstrong maintains that’s bound to help producers who suspect there’s some kind of change going on, like bare soil accumulating or erosion happening, but aren’t sure because they can’t verify it.

“Once an image is collected that’s time-stamped and geotagged, you have that as a permanent benefit for any kind of analysis you do in the future,” he says. “You’re going to able to do longitudinal studies, you’re going to be able to add new object detectors, all sorts of things. But if you don’t have that information recorded, it’s lost.”

The cost for the camera hardware in Enriched Ag’s Vision system is US$799, and then there’s a monthly subscription fee of US$99 for access to the combined Vision and Insights platform.

RealTime + Vision + Insights

Also launched in 2023, RealTime is Enriched Ag’s premier offering that adds satellite internet connectivity and a customized tablet to the Vision and Insights systems.

RealTime can be utilized to pinpoint locations for monitoring forage, bare ground, biodiversity, brush encroachment or weeds. Because producers and other ranch workers are able to view images and data in real time, without worrying about unreliable or non-existent Wi-Fi reception, management decisions can be made in the moment.

Cook notes ranchers always want to take care of sick animals, broken fences and water issues right away, but they’re often hampered by a lack of connectivity. With RealTime’s satellite connectivity, producers can stay connected to their entire ranch team, as well as others such as veterinarians and trusted advisors if needed, for a faster response.

Armstrong says for larger operations with lots of personnel and vehicles, RealTime can serve as a fleet management tool as well.

For its data transmission, RealTime uses SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network. SpaceX and John Deere announced a strategic partnership this past January aimed at expanding rural connectivity for farmers through expanded satellite communications services.

“The reason we selected Starlink was just the amazing coverage they have across the U.S. and Canada,” says Armstrong.

“A lot of the companies working in this space have been at the mercy of cellular connectivity,” he adds. “There are limits on cellular data transmission, so it’s not an elegant solution. With the Starlink system … you can start implementing really advanced technology and heavy data processing in the cloud.”

Armstrong says there’s no set price for the combined RealTime, Vision and Insights package as it is a quotation-based offering. For more on Enriched Ag’s products, visit the company’s web site.

Canadian partnerships

Enriched Ag is looking to strike partnerships with producers in Western Canada interested in giving its technology a try. These partnerships are expected to accelerate the development of forage production models in Canada.

According to Kalon Armstrong, the company’s business development leader, this will help train up the tool’s AI models to factor in differences in forage types, weather patterns et cetera between the U.S. and Canadian markets.

One of Enriched Ag’s Canadian partners is Larry Woolliams of Woolliams Farms at Airdrie, Alta. He says he’s enjoyed working with the Enriched Ag team, which he calls “very tech savvy and very futuristic driven.”

Woolliams has already worked with Enriched Ag on one project, a machine-learning based study evaluating pest pressure on his farm back in 2021.

Woolliams will soon embark on another project that examines how Enriched Ag’s Vision system can benefit the practice of using cereal crop residue to support winter livestock grazing.

For this study, he will be using a combine attachment called the Whole Buncher, which is made by a business Woolliams owns called AJ Manufacturing. The Whole Buncher creates straw bunches during harvest, which can then be used to feed cattle during the colder months.

Woolliams, who is set to receive a Vision camera unit from Enriched Ag, will be piloting the Vision system across his Alberta operation this year. He says he believes the technology is “top notch” and has great potential for benefitting Canadian ranchers and farmers.

The post AI assistance for ranchers appeared first on Grainews.

“It’s not surprising that less water is going to lead to less plant growth. We’re all very familiar with that,” said Cameron Carlyle, associate professor of rangeland ecology in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta, and researcher with the project.

The study involved an experimentally-imposed year-long drought on grasslands and shrublands in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe, as well as North and South America.

The U of A researchers found they had underestimated the impacts of short-term extreme drought on grassland systems.

“What we’re looking at in this study is the effects of extreme drought. We’ve defined an extreme drought as a one in 100-year type of event. We really haven’t had much opportunity to study that serious of a drought event before,” said Carlyle.

Climate change forecasts predict extreme droughts will become more common.

“What we found is that extreme drought had a much larger effect than a typical drought on plant growth,” said Carlyle.

“Here in Alberta, ranchers and farmers are dependent on grassland plant growth as a source of forage, which is what we’re really looking at. There’s going to be an implication for them. A typical drought on average reduces plant production by about 20 per cent.”

In the case of extreme drought, researchers found there was almost a 40 per cent reduction in plant growth.

Alberta farmers and ranchers may have a keener interest in the effect because different parts of the province have been in drought for a couple of years.

“The presence of drought is varied across the province, but I think it would be fair to say that there are large areas that have experienced much lower than average rainfall conditions for the last three years. It looks like we are going to be heading into a fourth year,” Carlyle said.

The study involved 100 sites around the world, on every continent except for Antarctica.

“One thing that came out is that not all grasslands respond to drought in the same way,” said Carlyle.

Some sites were more resistant to drought and some were more sensitive to it.

“The sites that we had in Alberta — they fared a little bit better. They seemed to be a little more resistant to drought. The reductions we saw overall at our sites in Alberta was about a 10 per cent reduction in forage,” he said.

Water on hold

This study marked the first time international researchers used standardized equipment to study a big-picture projection of drought. Using the same method allowed researchers to compare and have more certainty in the results.

Basic studies have been done before. In this study, researchers covered some plants with a shelter to create a drought, and then compared the results to the uncovered plants nearby.

Carlyle said droughts in general have been predicted by climate change models.

“Our climate models predict for us that we’re going to on average receive more rainfall, but at the same time, we are going to have more drought conditions,” he said.

“The reason for that is because the air temperature is warming and warmer air can hold more water. Water goes into the air, it stays there for longer periods of time before it falls as rain. Because the air is holding more water, rain won’t come as often. That’s what is going to create those extended drought periods.”

Grasslands are a vital part of the ecosystem.

“We depend on grasslands for several things. Farmers and ranchers depend on them for forage for livestock. The rest of society needs them as well. They provide a variety of ecosystems goods and services, sequestering carbon in the soil to help reduce the effects of climate change.

“They help to clean and regulate our water. They are habitat for wildlife. In Canada, grasslands are among our most endangered ecosystems. They’re habitat to many of our endangered species. Having healthy grasslands is important for all those reasons,” said Carlyle.

Researchers are curious to see if multiple years of droughts have a cumulative effect on plants, or if plants can recover regardless of the time period.

“Another question we’re looking at addressing is what makes some sites more resilient to drought and what makes other ones more susceptible to drought. If the grasslands are being grazed and managed with livestock, we might find other ways to manage the livestock that makes the ecosystem more resistant to drought.

“Keeping carbon stored in the soil is important from helping to prevent climate change, but increasing carbon storage in soils could also help producers adapt to droughts they might have in the future. Soils that have more carbon in the organic matter in the soil have the potential to hold onto more water than those that have less,” he said.

“People are seeing the effects of drought, and the effects of climate change are becoming more of a reality. Some of our other work is looking at grazing management that can lead to more drought-resistant systems.”

The post Research looks into drought’s lingering effects on grasslands appeared first on Grainews.

Over that time, he’s found certain legumes can bring net benefits to pastures and forage stands — significant enough to outweigh the potential drawbacks.

Eleven years ago, he recalls now, “we started working with a new sainfoin variety, and also asked a number of producers grazing higher-legume pastures to work with (Alberta’s provincial) Agri-Profit$ program and keep their beef and pasture financial records.”

During that time Alberta provincial production economists Dale Kaliel, and later Anatoliy Oginskyy, had been analyzing Alberta cow-calf operations through Agri-Profit$. That analysis involved recording pasture productivity data as benchmarks.

“For three years Dale added these additional higher-legume grazing producers into the total data pool,” Lastiwka says, and the department worked with applied research and forage associations in seeding sainfoin-alfalfa mixtures in small plot trials.

“After three years of data collection from these plots and producer data from regular- and higher-legume mix pastures, we saw that most higher-legume grass pastures were significantly more productive and profitable than grass pastures,” Lastiwka says now.

Several local producers in those associations wanted in on the next step of the research, he says, leading to 12 sites of about 10 acres each in Alberta and one in B.C. with the Peace River Forage Association, seeded with a mixture of sainfoin, alfalfa and grasses.

To “feed the grazing system,” so to speak, it’s important to have a legume in a pasture, Lastiwka says. “It improves the animal/plant nutrient cycling, forage quality, animal performance and grazing stability later into the season.”

With that in mind, the specialists began to look at new sainfoin cultivars and those varieties’ ability to regrow, compared with alfalfa.

“Since sainfoin can set seed so easily, it has the ability to create a soil seed bank; there is opportunity for regeneration from seed,” he says. “If a producer lets the plants go to seed now and then, there’s less need to reseed a pasture. This can work with many legumes, though alfalfa is harder to do this with.”

In earlier studies tied to the Year Round Grazing project (2006), Lastiwka and colleagues had found the productivity of Alberta’s perennial pastures to be disappointing. “We decided that the next stage would be looking at improving pastures with legumes.”

‘Made sense’

That said, the practice of rotational managed grazing had already been picking up support and adoption since the early ’80s, starting with advice from Allan Savory’s Holistic Resource Management, Stan Parsons’ Ranching for Profit, and producer-driven forage associations.

Thus, in Alberta, “there was a strong following for rest and recovery,” Lastiwka says.

“My brother (Benny) and I in 1987 divided hayfields (containing a lot of alfalfa) and started grazing them. We saw a 99-pound increase in our calf weights due to the higher legume content of the forage and better management of the forage growth.”

In other words, “it made sense to include more legumes in pastures,” he says.

The sainfoin project, he says, came about because Gordon Hutton, an Alberta Agriculture forage and business specialist at the time, “came to me after he’d been given a directive to do a business project on forages, and wondered what we should focus on.”

Lastiwka said he thought the project should focus on sainfoin — “because we needed to showcase the Canadian forage breeding programs which were not well supported.”

READ MORE: Going beyond grass: The case for forage legumes

Those breeding programs had developed several improved and non-bloating cultivars of legumes, such as Oxley II and AC Veldt cicer milkvetch, AC Bruce birdsfoot trefoil and AAC Mountainview and AAC Glenview sainfoin.

“The biggest reason people don’t include legumes in pastures is fear of bloat. This is something we needed to overcome,” Lastiwka says. Thus, “we jumped on the bandwagon to study sainfoin in our higher-legume pastures project.”

For the project, dubbed ‘Retrofitting Existing Pastures with Canadian-Bred Non-Bloating Legumes,’ the last phase was sod seeding, he recalls.

“If someone asked about putting some alfalfa in there, I told them to go ahead — because management is a key part of whether bloat is a problem or not. If you have a mix of grasses and legumes — some non-bloating legumes along with the bloating legumes — the dilution effect, allowing for more maturity and good management, can prevent bloat,” he says.

Anyone participating in the project could pick what they wanted to plant, he adds. “We were pushing for sainfoin to be included, along with cicer milkvetch, birdsfoot trefoil et cetera, but bloat-potential legumes like red clover, alsike clover, purple or yellow-blossom alfalfa were also encouraged.”

The benefits of sainfoin will always be complicated, however, by its seed size — almost seven times larger than alfalfa seed — which makes it a difficult sell for producers to include in their pasture mixes.

“It has only about 30,000 seeds per pound versus 200,000 seeds per pound with alfalfa. When buying seed and wanting sainfoin to be a large part of a total mix, most producers balk at paying that much money,” Lastiwka says.

Crop producers have been well covered for financial loss, given recent high grain prices and the availability of good crop insurance — but cattle prices have not been high until lately.

As a result, “forage acres have more risk. The total acres of forage in Canada have dropped dramatically and beef cattle numbers are falling.”

Into that context — as well as an ongoing drought — the federal government set up the OFCAF (On-Farm Climate Action Fund), Lastiwka says.

OFCAF is meant to support farmers in adopting beneficial management practices that store carbon and reduce greenhouse gases — specifically in areas such as nitrogen management, cover cropping, rotational grazing and higher-legume forage stands — while providing other environmental benefits such as improved biodiversity and soil health.

Last year, along came the federal/provincial Resilient Agriculture Landscape Program, Lastiwka adds.

“Now producers have funding for adding more legumes to pastures — 51 per cent legumes in pastures. The struggle last year, however, was drought, but we are again slowly making progress,” he says.

‘Growing like crazy’

All this amounts to opportunity — namely, the opportunity to get a message across about the benefits of higher levels of legumes in a pasture mix.

“A challenge is still which legumes are best for your own land, grazing plans, and management situation, and cost of seed,” Lastiwka says. “Because of the large size of sainfoin seed, it continues to be used at low rates in legume mixtures and many people don’t try to purchase improved varieties.”

The seed industry puts the percentage of total seed weight of each component of a mix on a bag label. Thus, “if the label says 50 per cent sainfoin, because of large seed size, this translates in sainfoin to only about 20 per cent of a stand in the field,” he says.

“For the highest productivity in moderately dry to moister areas, we can graze pastures quickly in the spring or early summer, taking about a quarter to a third of it, because they are growing like crazy. Then we can come back again for a second or maybe even a third graze in moister climates, after it has had a chance to adequately regrow.

“At our farm, with my second grazing in September or later, most legumes have some seed set. I graze that second pass hard. The grazing activity of cattle, consuming and defecating viable seed, can spread legume seeds (or trample them into the soil) as another planting.”

Seeds of several legumes can also be fed to cattle by mixing the seed into their mineral. “This is a low-cost seeding method for adding legumes to grass pastures. I have used this mix and find that after the manure starts to break down, sainfoin and other legume seedlings emerge from the manure,” Lastiwka says.

Sainfoin can be included in a lot of stands, but many producers don’t yet know enough about it. “Some don’t want to gamble and take the risks, since it is expensive, but with support from these recent programs, I hope more people will be willing to try it, and manage for its success.”

‘Paid to plant’

Lastiwka still has sainfoin in his own older stand, though he acknowledges he didn’t plant the best variety. “I seeded our project a year before some of the newly selected sainfoin varieties were available.”

Given that the uptake of new varieties is based on projections of how much a company can sell, will enough people buy it to cover the cost of producing it?

“Trying to meet those needs, economically and competitively, makes a difference in how many new Canadian forage varieties are available for producers. Now should be a time we could utilize a lot of sainfoin, with the new government programs, because people will be paid to plant high-legume pastures as long as they are over 50 per cent legumes,” Lastiwka says.

Lastiwka’s own pasture, planted in 2011, still has 50 per cent legume — and different kinds, at that. “The low land is bird’s foot trefoil and alsike clover plus grasses. Much of the upper land is yellow-blossom alfalfa, cicer milkvetch and grasses. My less-suitable sainfoin variety is only present in small amounts.”

Sainfoin breeding by Dr. Hari Poudel at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge remains ongoing, Lastiwka notes. Breeding of cicer milkvetch and alfalfas and grasses continues at the University of Saskatchewan, as does work with clovers and birdsfoot trefoil and hardier alfalfas in Nova Scotia and Quebec.

“Since there is still Canadian legume breeding going on, we need to keep making an effort to get newly released varieties into the right hands for producer use.”

The post Pastures, hayland get a leg up with legumes appeared first on Grainews.

Then, I looked at some pictures in a cattle parasite book and to my surprise, this common gastrointestinal worm is no more than a quarter- to half-inch long and inhabits the cow’s abomasum wall, giving its mucosa a surface of bumpy lesions.

What you see in the accompanying photo seems harmless enough, but these parasites can cause a lot of damage in both cows and calves, such as persistent diarrhea, indigestion and compromised immunity. These all lead to reduced feed intake, poor feed efficiency, poor body condition score (BCS), inadequate weight gain and even slower recovery from scours or pneumonia. That’s why I advocate a solid deworming program — and it should be implemented on nearly every cow-calf operation.

Before setting up any deworming program, we should be familiar with the life cycle of the brown stomach worm. It encompasses a period of about three weeks:

• Infected cattle pass worm eggs in manure, excrete it onto pastures.
• Eggs hatch into first-, second- and third-stage larvae, and develop in the same manure.
• Third-stage larvae migrate onto pasture grass.
• Cattle ingest third-stage larva on grazed grass; the larvae migrate to the abomasum mucosa.
• Worms mature into fourth-stage larva and finally into egg-laying adults, yet often arrest final development to hibernate in the overwintering cows until spring.

The extent of worm contamination on pastures usually parallels cow and calf grazing activity. This means there is a modest increase of worms during the first couple of months of spring, followed by a dip in midsummer, ending in a population explosion.

READ MORE: When the worms come marching in

It seems mature cows shed the most worm eggs in the early spring; those eggs then develop into larvae, which either contaminate the entire pasture or simply die off. Meanwhile, new spring calves are also starting to consume contaminated grass, thus becoming worm carriers. The calves deposit them back as shed eggs, which lead to most of the late-pasture contamination.

I used to work for a local feed mill that still owns a 150-beef cow operation. Years ago, my friend developed his own cattle deworming plan based on the above natural life cycle of round stomach worms. It mainly uses two chemical types of anthelmintic dewormers: avermectins (ivermectin) and benzimidazoles (fenbendazole). His primary goal is effective worm control as well as to minimize chemical resistance by the worms.

In a three-year cycle, he uses the Ivomec (five mg/ml ivermectin) pour-on for two years in a row at the rate of one ml per 10 kg of bodyweight of both cow and her calf, before they are both released onto pasture.

For the third year, he switches to Safeguard drench (100 mg/ml fenbendazole). In this latter treatment, he provides one drench of 2.5 ml for every 50 kg of cattle bodyweight. Then he returns to Ivomec for the following year, which creates a new cycle.

My friend prefers the Ivomec treatment, because it offers two weeks of residual power against worms and controls other external parasites. In fact, he often goes onto a third straight year of Ivomec pour-on, when lice and mange flare up during a hard winter. In comparison, fenbendazole is also effective control against stomach worms, but it makes no claims against other cattle parasites.

Despite my friend’s or anyone’s deworming plan, we should always know the cost/revenue benefits of worm control in cattle. The above investments are:

• Ivomec Pour-on = 1 ml per 10 kg; 75 ml (@ $205 for 5 litres) per 750 kg of beef cow + calf = $3.08/pair.
• Safeguard Drench = 2.5 ml per 50 kg; 37.5 ml (@ $550 for 3.78 litres) per 750 kg of beef cow + calf = $5.46/pair.

Some Canadian research demonstrates an 18-pound weaning-weight advantage due to deworming cattle compared to untreated controls. For example, if my Safeguard input cost (cow + calf) is $5.46 per pair and estimated revenue (18 lb. x $3.50/lb.) is $63 per weaned calf; the net revenue is $57.54/treated calf. For a 150-cow/calf operation that is an extra $8,600 in revenue.

Such an economic benefit is always good news. In the end, we may not be able to get rid of every last worm in the average beef cow herd. However, we can reduce their negative impact on cattle health and performance.

The post Solid deworming programs essential for grazing cows appeared first on Grainews.

Last winter, we created a new little pasture by clearing out the trees and willow bushes, then piling and burning them in hopes of growing more grass. We grazed that new pasture twice this summer with our yearling heifers, and it served as one more paddock in our rotation system.

However, the willows have been coming back in again prolifically, sending up shoots all over the pasture. The heifers ate them back a little since they like to browse on the leaves, but at the rate the new shoots are regrowing, we fear we’ll lose all the cleared ground we’d gained.

We didn’t want to use spray, and hoped to set these bushes back naturally with the cattle’s browsing activity. Since our bull corrals have no brush or weeds because of the constant nibbling activity (animals in corrals being fed hay always like to eat something else in addition), we thought we’d winter the yearling bulls in the new little pasture and let them work on the willows, then take them out again in early spring before the grass starts to grow.

They still need hay for winter feed, so we had to figure out some kind of feeder to keep them from wasting hay fed on the ground. Since hay feeders/mangers/bunks are expensive, anywhere from several hundred dollars to more than $1,000, we decided to build one ourselves with materials at hand. We could situate it in the fence corner next to the lane, where we could easily add hay through the fence, and brace it solidly in the corner so the bulls couldn’t move it around and damage it.

My daughter Andrea and I scrounged materials from our “salvage pile” and created the feeder in a couple of hours. At first we thought we’d build it from some old boards but then realized it would be quicker and easier to utilize an old leaky aluminum water trough that hadn’t been usable for 25 years. It would be perfect for the job, since any rain or snow melt could leak out instead of pooling around the hay. To reinforce and secure it so the bulls couldn’t damage it, we situated it tightly in the fence corner against the braces, and placed an old board under the edge of the trough to keep it from being flat on the ground.

The old fence removed last winter when the new pasture was created had been a couple of feet off the new fence line, so there was an old post hole conveniently located near the end of the water trough. I cleaned out the old hole (reaching in to remove the caved-in dirt) and made it deep enough again to put in a salvaged post. After tamping it solidly, and using several old boards to brace it, the makeshift post was very secure.

Thus we could use that post to secure a pole placed tightly against the top of the water trough to reinforce it so the bulls couldn’t mash it down when leaning into the trough to eat their hay. We secured the other end of the pole to the fence brace in the opposite corner.

We also put a pole along the bottom of the water trough to make sure it wasn’t damaged and caved in by the bulls’ feet. We used a tall board to brace it and keep it from moving out from the trough. Everything was securely screwed together. It helped having a battery-powered drill for putting in all the screws! Our inexpensive feed manger was created quickly and easily, using materials salvaged from fence remodels in the past.

Now the young bulls are happily eating willows and dormant grass in that pasture, with plenty of room for exercise, and enjoying a little hay from their “new” feeder to balance their diet. If we can use this as a winter pasture or young bulls every year, we may eventually win the war on willows.

The post A handy inexpensive feed bunk appeared first on Grainews.