26 Story Idea? Email Paul.Nolan@Farms.com Better Farming | March 2024 Drought remedies Prairie beef farmers beset by drought conditions in 2023 ought to be cautious about letting their cattle graze too soon this spring. “The rule of thumb generally is if it’s one day too early, it sets you back three days in the fall,” says Pamela Iwanchysko, a livestock and forage extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture. Grant Lastiwka, a beef farmer and forage specialist with Union Forage in Calgary, explains that plants start building for the following year in the latter part of a season. “What they’re experiencing determines how many tillers per grass plant they’re going to build for next year. And in many cases of stress, it is never as much as it will be normally.” Plants also undergo stress during winter in areas experiencing a combination of cold temperatures and inadequate snow cover. The stress in both instances can result in less potential yield in the spring, and it’s then when plants need to get off to the right start to express more tillers. “It is a plant within a plant, so one plant will sprout several plants. And it sprouts fewer when life isn’t very good,” Lastiwka says. Agrologist Karin Lindquist, founder of Praise the Ruminant, further adds that when plants come out of ‘YOU HAVE TO GET DOWN ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES AND ASSESS THE ACTUAL GRASS PLANTS.’ BEWARE EARLY GRAZING OF STRESSED PLANTS By RICHARD KAMCHEN Grant Lastwicka photo
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