Weeds

“Fire can be used as a tool, but fire is not a tool. Fire is part of the ecosystem process and it is just as important as rainfall on the land.” See what the benefits are and how you can get started.

Have you ever looked across your property and thought about some land management goals you would like to take to the next level? Have you not gotten started because you weren’t quite sure what to do, or were lacking funding to implement practices? Well, the Natural Resources Conservation Service might be help with their Conservation […]

Biodiversity – like having lots of different plants, bugs and wildlife in our pastures, some of which we might not even like – doesn’t always make managing our grazing  easy. But before we wish away all that “difference,” here’s a story from the news desk at the Smithsonian Institute describing the important role biodiversity can […]

What do cattle and lesser prairie-chickens have in common? They both love grasslands. But grasslands are in trouble. Thanks to decades of fire suppression, redcedars, shinnery oak and mesquite are progressing steadily across the prairie. Open grasslands can become closed-canopy forests in as little as 40 years. And that’s a big problem for the bird, […]

Current federal regulations recommending that rangelands be rested from grazing for two seasons after fire are not supported by science. In fact, the research shows that healthy prairie ecosystems require grazing and fire. When tested on the ground, evidence shows that moderate post-fire grazing causes few impacts on northern mixed-grass prairie vegetation. That’s the conclusion […]

All you need is your smart phone, maybe a shovel or fence post from the back of your truck, and the willingness to take a picture and email it to yourself and you’ve become a monitoring master!

In this video, Jason Crisman of JC’s Organic Farm shares a surprising development in his herd. They’re eating blackberry bushes with gusto! He attributes their new foraging to his rotational grazing, fencing them into smaller paddocks so that they become less selective graziers. Like us, cows are creatures of habit and they eat what they’ve […]

If you’re looking out at pastures that are growing so fast you don’t know how to keep up, here are some tips for managing your grazing so that you slow the speed that forage matures, and you maintain quality forage.

Greg Brann, Natural Resources Conservation Service Grazing Specialist in Tennessee, recently sent some information out to his local farmers about “indicator plants” along with some tips for how to use that information to improve soil health and pasture quality.  It’s good information for everyone to consider. What Are Indicator Plants? Indicator Plants are plants that, […]

Here’s how Greg Judy manages Autumn Olive in his pastures to take advantage of it for nitrogen fixation and soil building as well as forage. Check the map in the article to see if it’s in your area, and if not, consider these techniques for managing other brushy species.

This is a good example of how changing our thinking can help us deal with brush economically and efficiently by using our tools to work with mother nature.

Think no-till is a new deal? Well not to Jimmy Standefer. He planted his first no-till cover crop in 1967. It was a failure. It took a couple of years for him to get his Dad to let him try it again. But the second try was a huge success and after that there was […]

One of our On Pasture readers in east Texas wrote us to get some ideas for controlling bitterweed on her place. She raises natural sheep and hay, so would prefer not to use herbicides. But she now has one four-acre pasture that is about 80% bitterweed and pulling and burning it is very time consuming. […]

On Pasture reader Kirk Cunningham wanted to know if I had ever found studies on cows grazing teasel. I knew of nothing off the top of my head, so I spent quite some time searching the internet. The only thing I found was from the 1945 Congressional Record. Sandwiched between remarks on the results of […]

Uh-Oh! Grazing your pastures too short this fall could mean more weeds next spring!