ELMWOOD, Ont. — An Ontario cattle producer is using management rather than eradication to control knapweed.
“It has excellent nutrition,” Dr. Peter Kotzeff told the Profitable Pastures Conference and Trade Show March 17.
The trick is to keep the noxious plant species from bolting, at which point it become unpalatable.
Kotzeff said knapweed can provide a substantial amount of forage from around mid-May into August in Bruce and Grey counties, which is traditional cattle country in Ontario.
“If cattle will eat it, it’s not a weed,” said Kotzeff, the 2015 recipient of the Ontario Pasture Award sponsored by Beef Farmers of Ontario, the Ontario Forage Council and Mapleseed.
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“It’s something you need to manage. It’s almost impossible to kill. It only works if you have intensive grazing. You have to keep it in a vegetative state.”
The strategy also helps makes room for more desired pasture species such as clover and trefoil.
Kotzeff, who also maintains a large-animal practice in Grey and Bruce counties, said he likes trying new things, which may explain why he moved from his birthplace, Toronto, to Bruce County in the late 1970s.
Last fall, he aerial-seeded oats and cereal rye onto 200 acres of soybeans in mid-September as a cover crop.
“It (the rye) looked so nice coming up I thought I would try grazing 100 acres of it,” he said.
“Grazing cover crops and residues is a great way to improve soil health.”
Kotzeff wants to seed the field with a fast-growing, mixed-species crop after the cattle have grazed the rye. That cover crop would also be grazed.
He intends to maintain permanent pasture on his 1,850 acres of agricultural property, but he is also looking to build a wider rotation using a variety of forages, row crops and cover crops.
“My goal this year is to have everything green in the fall,” he said.
Buying calves at the bottom end of the condition scale is another less than usual practice for Kotzeff.
“They are high risk, but there can also be high reward, and I am a veterinarian.”
The calves receive a five-way vaccine and are de-wormed, if necessary, when they arrive in late winter or early spring. They’re typically placed in a sheltered holding paddock and provided with feed pellets and hay.
It’s critical that the calves understand where they can access water, Kotzeff said. He pastured 339 yearling steers and 69 cow-calf pairs last year.
The cows need to be able to fend for themselves. If not, they’re culled.
Kotzeff makes calving ease a priority when selecting bulls.
A sheltered area is used for calving with hay rolled out for the cows. His goal is to complete calving by the end of May.
Calving pasture areas may be cut up in places, but Kotzeff said the quality of the pastures has improved over time. They’re only lightly grazed later in the year.
The calves, which have had access to creep feed over the summer, are fall weaned. Cows and calves are moved into a barn with only the calves having outside access.
Last year he moved the cows to pasture Oct. 8, when all the calves were outside. It took almost a day before the calves realized their mothers were missing, he added.
“There was a little bit of bawling, but they were not unduly stressed. They were in a familiar setting.”
Kotzeff’s intensive grazing management uses permanent perimeter fencing and semi-permanent and temporary fencing.
Cattle are fenced from the river and woodlots. Riparian areas along the Saugeen River and temporary streams are grazed only lightly.
