Cassie LeMaster: 0:00

Hello, my name is Cassie LeMaster. I'm the Equine Livestock and Forage agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension in Polk County. Welcome to the Extension Connection Podcast. In this episode, I will cover some of the unique aspects to managing pastures here in Polk County. Polk County is in western North Carolina at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Most of the county is considered Piedmont. But the Western portion is mountainous. People come here from all over the US to experience our great climate and rural horse and livestock friendly community. And often managing pastures isn't something they did much of before moving here. So I want to give you some good tips. But before that, I first want you to consider these keys to a successful Forage program and keep these in mind as I talk about how we manage our soil. Animal grazing behavior and the various forage species that we can grow here. Number one is to view your forage or pasture as a commodity. Now what I mean by that is that your pasture is a valuable feed or forage source for your animals, and you will manage it much differently when you view it that way, versus if you just consider it an exercise lot for your horse's turnout. Or a place to put a round bale for your small ruminants. Number two is to use reliable information. Thankfully, by listening to this podcast, you're already doing this one. There's no limit to the amount of neighborly advice out there, but your local extension office will help you sift through some of that and will only provide research backed information. Number three is to implement timely management. Whether you have cool season or warm season grasses, they each have their ideal windows for management practices such as seeding and fertilization, and doing so outside of that window might actually result in less productive pastures or more weed pressure. Number four is to use an adapted forage species. There are a number of forage options that we can grow here. And then some others that just will not persist. I'm here to help you sort through what will work and what won't. Number five is to consider your animal's nutrition needs when establishing your pasture or forage system, and then consider what time of year your animals' needs might be highest or lowest, and then plan your seasonal forage growth accordingly. So for example, you might need to plan your best forage growth to coincide with spring kidding or lambing when lactating ewes or does have much higher nutrient requirements. In this case, you'll need a cool season forage and likely a legume, like clover, mixed in to increase the quality of that forage. Number seven is to pay attention to your soil fertility. Good forage needs nutrients to grow, and deficiencies will lead to weaker stands and more weeds. You can find out a lot about your soil's fertility, and what nutrients are lacking from a soil analysis. In North Carolina, those can be submitted to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, and from April until Thanksgiving each year, they're free. All you have to do is pay for the shipping to get them to the lab. And last is to manage the grazing behavior of your animals. Whether you have sheep, horses, or cows, they will all cherry pick their favorite plants or parts of the plant and waste others if given the option. Sheep and horses do tend to nip grasses down much lower than some other livestock species. But pastures can become overgrazed with any grazing animal if we don't fence areas of the pasture off and provide rest and regrowth periods for that forage. Okay, so now I'd like to talk about the climate in Polk County because this will play a role in your forage management strategies. Columbus, North Carolina, which is the county seat of Polk County, averages about 56 to 60 inches of rainfall per year with about 117 rainy days and 214 sunny days. Sounds like great forage growing weather. Like many places, our rain is not evenly distributed throughout the year. Typically we have mild wet winters. This comes in the form of rain, not snow. Hot summers with at least 25 days over 90 degrees, and then we have a dry fall. The rain we get in the summer is most often from thunderstorm events, and that oftentimes exceeds the infiltration capacity of our clay soils. This can lead to potential erosion or runoff issues. And since our topography can be hilly, depending on what side of the county you're on, this can be challenging. If we get big rain fall events and it all runs off downhill, then none of that is getting into the soil and benefiting your forage plants. October is historically our driest month, which often complicates plans for planting. And stockpiling fescue or planting other cool season grasses in which fall is the ideal time. Something unique about Polk County is that it also falls in what they call an isothermal belt, where certain areas near Tryon and Columbus are protected from cold winter winds by the mountains. So this shields the area from severe winter frost. So often areas both to the west where it tends to be cooler anyways, and areas to the east experience colder winter temperatures. The soil here the composition of the soil and the quality can vary greatly between farms as well. This depends largely on past management practices or past forestry practices, and these soil microclimates can modify the effect of the greater climate conditions by differing in their nutrient and water holding capacity, as well as their native fertility. This can have a major effect on the productivity of a particular forage species as well. In general, soils here are naturally acidic and low in phosphorus. Warm season forages such as bahia grass, dallis grass, and the native broomsedge do well in these conditions. However, to grow more preferred forages, Bermuda grass, fescue, or orchard grass, lime will be needed to bring the pH up closer to neutral. Now fescue and Bermuda grass are our most commonly grown perennial, pasture forages here, and then some orchard grass to a much smaller extent, although orchard grass is very popular, cool season, bunch grass among livestock and horse owners. It has a much shallower root system and is sensitive to overgrazing and soil fertility, so it often doesn't persist here more than two or three years. It tends to do better when we can mix it in our fescue pastures and allow that fescue canopy to help shade the orchard grass and keep it a little cooler. Tall Fescue or Kentucky 31 really is the only cool season perennial that we can reliably grow here. It's very deep rooted. It's the most tolerant of hoof traffic and close grazing compared to any of the other cool season grass species. It's also very high yielding, stays green for the majority of the year. And its fall growth exceeds that of many annual species, so it's great for stockpiling, which is also my favorite use for tall fescue. Fescue is best planted in the fall, so the roots have a chance to develop through the winter before going through its first summer season. And I mentioned earlier that October is our driest month. So often fall drought conditions can complicate. Our plans for planting later fall planting can still work if the pastures can be rested until there's adequate spring growth. I get asked a lot if we can plant fescue in the spring, but spring fescue planting you can expect up to an 80% failure rate. If you don't have access to irrigation it just gets too hot in the summertime too fast for that plant to be able to survive without that good adequate root system. Now, fescue is less palatable and not as high quality as other forages. It also contains an endophyte, so this is a fungus that lives within the plant. And it must be present for that grass to persist. There are endophyte free varieties but those do not live here. This endophyte produces a toxin that causes vasoconstriction in our horses and livestock, so they're blood vessels constrict, and this makes it harder for them to dissipate heat in the summer. And causes many reproductive complications. Horses seem to be the most sensitive to that, but it affects our other livestock as well. There are novel endophytes, or what we call friendly endophyte fescue varieties that can be planted instead. So those still provide the benefit to the grass but do not produce the toxin. And these are typically more expensive. And we would usually like to start a new pasture with those when we were establishing a new pasture or even consider eradicating the old Kentucky 31 and establishing one of those novel varieties instead. Other popular cool season grasses that I get asked about a lot, but just don't persist here as a perennial are Timothy Bluegrass and Broome. So, with our limited cool season options, I'll talk about some warm season perennials. Bermuda grass is the most popular warm season perennial grass that's grown here. Its productive season is may through the first frost. It is a sod producing grass, and that dense sod makes it much more tolerant of treading and overgrazing. Bermuda grass tolerates a wide range in soil types and is very drought tolerant. There are both hybrid and seeded varieties. Hybrid varieties must be started from sprigs and unfortunately that can be expensive and difficult to contract on smaller acreages. But now there are many different winter hardy and higher producing seeded varieties on the market and well, that we can utilize in our pastures. The main complaint that I hear from people about Bermuda grass is that they don't like that it goes dormant in the winter. There are many different cool season annual grasses such as annual rye grass or oats that can be oversedated into that dormant Bermuda grass sod for winter or early spring grazing, if that is something that you need. Beh grass is another warm season, perennial grass that has many similar qualities to Bermuda. It's less palatable to the animals and typically lower quality. It is more tolerant of shade, lower soil pH, and what soils than Bermuda is. The biggest thing for horse owners is that these warm season grasses are lower in what we call non-structural carbohydrates than our cool, seasoned grasses are. Non-structural carbohydrates are a factor in the development of laminitis and horses, and warm season grasses don't have the capacity to accumulate that sugar like cool, seasoned grasses do. Both of these warm season grasses can be planted in late spring after the last chance of frost through midsummer. Both of these sod producing grasses are also more suitable for small acreages or heavy use slots. That just don't get a lot of rest. I personally have Bermuda grass planted in my heavy use areas closest to the barn and water troughs where animals tend to hang out most and you get a lot of that wear out from traffic. This brings me to my next pasture management tip. Plan to use a sacrifice, pasture, or a dry lot. A sacrifice. Pasture is a smaller pasture. It has marginal grass cover, and so the quality of that is going to be sacrificed for the maintenance of the majority of the forage and the rest of your pastures. So we could do that or we can install a dry lot where the forage is removed and then replaced with a well drained footing. So that is an added expense of course. Okay, either of these are recommended. So we use them both for pasture management purposes, but even with the best forage plans, there's going to be times of the year when your grass is drought stressed or the soil is too wet and the animals need to be kept off pastures. So those dry lots are important for those times as well. When that grass is stressed. Also, if you have horses, it can be a very important management tool to control weight and limit grass consumption. In the spring especially. In the spring when Laminitis is the most prevalent. Now there are many other annual forages that we can grow. This ranges from crab grass which is an excellent forage that many people think of as a weed but can be an excellent addition to our pastures millets. And then there's rye grass and wheat that we can grow in the cool season. But start with a perennial as your base forage, and then use sound management practices. And then you can start experimenting with other forage types to expand the number of grazing days your animals spend on pasture. This will greatly reduce your hay and overall feed bill. If you need pasture advice or help putting together a grazing plan, contact your local extension agent and check back here on Wednesdays for new episodes. Livestock and equine topics and forages will be posted on the third Wednesday each month. Thanks for listening.