COLLEGE STATION – With Texas ranchers enduring a third drought in four years, Extension Range Specialist Dr. Larry White at Texas A&M University said it's a critical time for evaluating pasture management practices.
He said the current dry cycle may last for up to 10 years, so protecting forage resources through reduced stocking rates is essential. However, the amount of reduction necessary is dependent on the producer's current situation.
"It's an important time for producers to re-evaluate their entire operation [as far as] what they've been doing correctly and what has not worked as well as it should have," White said. "What I would suggest to ranchers is that they go and evaluate their pastures at this time and determine how close the grazing has occurred."
He said a healthy pasture may have some bare ground, but it should also have three to six inches of stubble. White said there should be even more if producers are continuing to graze livestock, because pasture growth is not expected until April or May.
"If ranchers have adequate forage now to protect the resource, then obviously they have probably already made some stocking rate adjustments because of the drought and are closer to being in balance with the forage supply," he said. "They can maintain this reduced herd size if we get any kind of reasonable rainfall."
White said reduced stocking rates may still be too high if the dry spell continues. Producers may have to make further reductions, he said, to protect their resources and their ability to recover from the drought.
Producers should move the remaining livestock to winter pastures and hold them until May, if they can, he said. Moving their livestock to cool season pastures will allow the warm season grasses to get a good start even with below normal rainfall.
White said there are not many options for producers who are already struggling to balance forage supplies with demand.
"For those ranchers that are already in trouble, it's actually best to bite the bullet and further reduce their stocking rate even to the point where they do not have any livestock," he said. "They need to allow those (forage) plants to achieve recovery before they restock.
"The key to this is that if you're already in a total crisis situation, there is very little you can do at this point except to destock, allow nature to help recover the site with plenty of rest, and then to not allow this kind of management to occur in the future."
White said failing to reduce stocking rates impacts a pasture in several ways. He said it weakens the best grasses, making drought recovery difficult. White also said going into the fall with an excessive amount of bare ground resulted in an abundance of weeds, which compete with desirable forage for moisture.
"One of the other negative impacts of having grazed too close is that when it does rain, because of the reduced litter cover, a higher percentage will actually run off the soil," he said. "The rainfall you receive is not as important as how much soil moisture you capture."
White said good management leaves adequate cover and vegetation to utilize the moisture and produce forage. He said with excess run-off also comes excessive erosion.
"You're losing your best soil and the nutrients from your soil," he said. " It also removes what limited seed supply you might have had in that topsoil to help reestablish a good stand of grass."
White said droughts are normal occurrences, and producers should continue to prepare for them.
"We recommend that you get into a regular forage monitoring system where you evaluate your forage supply at least three times a year," he said. "Make the seasonal adjustments in stocking rate as the supply dictates so that you can avoid being in a crisis situation year after year that ends up bankrupting you and destroying your resources."