THORSBY, Alta. — The growth pattern of grass looks more like a profile of the mountains than the prairies.
It’s a grass manager’s job to use creative ways to fill in the valleys of this mountainous profile provide less expensive grazing throughout the summer, said a grazing specialist.
Woody Lane said grass doesn’t grow evenly throughout the year, and good grazers need to fill in the holes and valleys of the slow grass-growing period.
“Grazing is much less expensive than feeding stored forages,” Lane told a West-Central Forage Association sheep and goat grazing seminar.
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“A few weeks here and a couple weeks there helps reduce costs.… What good is yield if it all comes in May.”
Lane, who knows that what works for his farm in Oregon may not work for northern Alberta producers, suggested ideas that may work or may need to be adjusted for the Alberta climate.
In early spring before the grass starts to grow, Lane puts his livestock on fall-seeded crops such as annual Italian ryegrass, barley, triticale or oats. The Italian ryegrass has explosive growth in spring, packed with nutrition and highly palatable.
“Ryegrass is designed for grazing,” he said. “It’s designed to come back after spring grazing for multiple grazing.”
In mid-summer when some grass is not yet ready to be grazed, Lane puts his animals on warm season grasses such as sorghum and Sudan grass that grow well in hot weather.
“When the weather gets warm, the growth explodes,” said Lane, who advised Alberta farmers to plant a small acreage of warm season grass as a trial grazing project.
“This grass gets a surge in the middle of summer that could fill a hole,” he said.
Lane also suggested producers look at new varieties of forage hybrid, which are crossed between a turnip and rapeseed or turnip, kale and rapeseed. The annual forage is a good idea for flushing ewes. Animal eats the leaves rather than the bulbs, and it can be regrazed every month.
“The new varieties are a world away from old varieties. They come back faster and are the mainstay in the drier periods,” he said.
“It’s not perfect. It is a tool.”
Lane uses irrigation on pasture to ensure growth during the drier periods.
In fall, Lane suggested bale grazing, swath grazing, grazing sloughs of reed canary grass or renting pasture or harvested fields from neighbours.
