Tom Krawiec and Troy Bishopp are on the same wave length – grazing charts are where it’s at if you want to have healthy pastures and a successful grazing season.

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About the author

Tom Krawiec

Tom, along with his wife Jan, started raising & direct marketing hogs, sheep, cattle, turkeys, & chickens in 1999, the same year they completed a Holistic Management course. Their operation slowly morphed into custom grazing cattle on rented land and Tom’s passion for managing grass grew in the process. Tom & Jan completed the Ranching for Profit school in 2003 and found the ‘missing piece’. Since then, Jan has fulfilled her dream of being a nurse & Tom is currently the Production Manager of a ranch in north east British Columbia.

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4 Comments

1. Vinod Kumar K says:

   March 21, 2019 at 1:23 pm

   Let me suggest a grass harvesting plan. For simplicity let us consider a vetiver (or bahia) grass pasture that is not grazed; but the grass is cut and fed to the cows in their sheds. The vetiver grass growth follows a S shaped sigmoid curve with peak growth rate after 12 weeks of tillering. After 24 weeks the growth flattens out. It is roughly seen that the growth rate increases only slightly from week 8 to week 12; the growth rate slightly reduces from week 12 to week 16. So it is suggested that the grass be cut at week 16 to the height it was at week 8. The grass will be cut at week16, week24, week32 etc. It will have 8 weeks to recover. The level to which it is cut is such that the growth rate is near the peak rate.

   I have indicated these Cut from and to levels and the time in your Grass Growth curve. How is this grass harvesting plan please?

   https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FSNmetIoDwiPCiuu1Q8PoToPFcdKnP7L

   • Tom A Krawiec says:

     March 21, 2019 at 5:20 pm

     Vinod I am not familiar with grass that achieves peak growth until after 12wks. A grazier is trying to achieve a balance between peak grass growth, nutritional value, promotion of soil biology, and available labour. It has been my experience that leaving grass grow into maturity provides livestock with little more than cardboard. In fact, neither cattle, sheep, hogs, nor horses will eat forage that old. As I commented in the article, my experience has been at latitudes greater than 51. Length of recovery closer to the equator may be significantly longer so maybe your example is valid. It has just not been my experience.
     One more comment, as a grazier, I cringe when I think of cutting grass and hauling it to livestock. To be a low-cost producer means labour & equipment expenses must be kept at a minimum. It is much less costly to have livestock harvest their own feed.

   • John Marble says:

     March 22, 2019 at 6:58 am

     Hello Vinod.

     I was very interested to read your comments about proper timing of harvest and the graphic and practical similarities between grazing and cutting grass. As a grazier, I always tend to favor grazing over mechanical harvest, for at least two reasons: economics and nutrient loss. That said, your observation about the physiological response is, I think, spot on.

     Please watch for an up-coming article in On Pasture about the effect of repeated harvest of grass and the resultant forage growth curves.

     Sincerely,

     John Marble

2. The Grass Whisperer says:

   March 12, 2019 at 7:54 am

   Thanks Tom for your work and inspiration.