TORONTO — Soil is the most important ingredient that goes into producing well-marbled, pastured-finished beef, says a cattle consultant from Mississippi.
“It all starts there,” Allen Williams told the Carving Our Niche conference in Toronto Feb. 24.
“I didn’t used to think that. I used to look at forage above ground and pour a lot of fertilizer to it.”
He said fertilizer does elicit a Brix response in plants, but as quickly as this indicator of plant quality increases, it falls off again.
Williams said the answer is to improve soil’s physical and biological potential to generate nutrients and the ability of plants to access them. Both are linked to soil organic matter levels.
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“For every one percent of organic matter you add in the soil, you’re building another $750 per acre in nutrients,” Williams said.
Pasture that is already productive can be maintained with rotational grazing. The idea is to move the cattle before plants are grazed too closely.
Williams recommended winter bale grazing when a modest amount of pasture improvement is needed. The plants and microbial life will benefit from the combination of manure and feed residue once spring returns.
The Savory Institute has popularized a more extreme measure suited to significantly deteriorated pasture. It simulates ecosystems dominated by large herds of grazing animals, such as the bison that once roamed North America’s Great Plains, and is reputed to restore soil organic levels quickly.
Under this system, as much as a million pounds of cattle are maintained per acre of pasture for about an hour before being moved. Many of the plants are trampled while the cattle eat and there is heavy manuring.
The pasture is then allowed to rest for a year. If done correctly, weed species are reduced and the capacity to produce quality forage is enhanced.
Williams said interested farmers should carefully evaluate their pasture quality and educate themselves about the system before adopting it. Even then, he said, it’s advisable to start with small area to see how it works.
Once soil quality is optimized, it’s a matter of selecting animals with the right genotype and ensuring that the finishing pasture has peaked in quality.
“We are now routinely slaughtering cattle that go 80 per cent Choice or better,” Williams said.
U.S. Choice roughly corresponds with Canada’s AAA standard in terms of marbling and is one step below Prime.
“If we’re going to finish cattle on forage, you need to graze at the right time to balance the Brix with protein, slightly beyond mid-maturity,” he said.
“Brix is a measure of the dissolved solids in the sap of the plant.”
A rotational grazing system is needed to ensure that animals graze only the choice parts of the plants.
“Not more than the top 30 percent of available dry matter should be taken,” he said.
Jack Kyle, a pasture specialist with the Ontario agriculture ministry, said pasture reaches its peak at late bud to 10 percent flowering with legumes and at head emergence with grasses.
Unfortunately, the window of opportunity is limited. Kyle said winter rye can help fill the gap in early spring, while sorghum, sudangrass and millet can support pastures in the summer and summer-seeded oats and forage brassica species such kale, swede and turnip can work in the fall.
In addition, perennial pasture species can be stockpiled to extend the pasturing season, but Kyle said stored forages should be harvested at their quality peak.
Williams said the Brix measurement can help farmers manage their pasture crops. There is a direct relationship between pasture Brix levels and rate of gain, he added.
“If your average Brix is five percent or less, your average daily gain will be a pound or less,” he said.
“If you’re over 15 Brix, you can get an average daily gain of around three pounds.”
Williams recommended investing in a refractometer to track levels. Â
Harry Stoddart, who raises cattle near Lindsay, Ont., said he uses genotype and rotation through multi-paddock system for his 100 percent grass-fed, organic production. The goal is to limit grazing to no more than two bites per plant before the animals are moved.
“You need 32 to 45 days of rest to allow your plants to recover fully,” he said.
“We move every day and under some conditions we move two times a day.… We’re not looking to create a lawn when we do this. There is trampling.”
