Cassie LeMaster 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Extension Connection podcast. I'm Cassie Lemaster, equine livestock and forage agent for North Carolina State Extension in Polk County. Glad to have you here with me today. Today, we're gonna talk about tall fescue. Love it or hate it, if you raise livestock or horses in the transition zone, you probably have it. We certainly have plenty of it here in Polk County. The transition zone is the area between the two distinct climates to the north and the south, where cool season grasses like orchard grass, timothy, and Kentucky bluegrass dominate in the north, and warm season grasses like Bermuda grass and bahiagrass thrive in the hot, humid south. Because of its climate, this transition zone is too hot and too dry in the summer for most northern cool season grasses to survive, but too cold in the winter for southern warm season grasses to remain productive year-round. This makes tall fescue, with its unique endophyte-driven hardiness, the dominant, highly resistant pasture grass across the entire region. July might seem like an odd time to discuss a cool season grass like tall fescue, but fall will be here before we know it, and plans for fall seeding should start getting hashed out now. Before you automatically order more Kentucky 31 seed, listen to this podcast and see what it might be costing you. Before we dive into the science of what goes wrong with this grass and how we can fix it, let's look at its history. The story of how fescue got here is actually pretty interesting, and it starts on a steep hillside in Kentucky back in 1931. A farmer named William Suter noticed an incredibly robust green grass growing on his farm. It was surviving droughts that killed off everything else, and it could handle being stomped on and grazed down. Locally, people called it Suter's grass. Word eventually got out, and later that year, Dr. Ian Fergus, a plant breeder from the University of Kentucky, came out to Suter's farm to see what the fuss was about. He immediately saw its potential, collected seeds, and started growing it in test plots. By 1943, Fergus and his colleague William Johnstone officially released that variety to the public. They named it Kentucky 31. It spread, and quickly Kentucky 31 became the absolute forage of choice across the Mid-South because it had deep roots, incredible drought tolerance, and can survive many poor management practices. But as we all know, if something seems too good to be true, there's usually a catch, and with Kentucky 31, that catch was devastating. While the grass was thriving, producers quickly noticed that the animals eating it were struggling. Inside Kentucky 31 is a tiny microscopic roommate living inside the plant. It's a fungus called an endophyte, specifically a wild-type endophyte. It lives completely invisible to the naked eye, tucked right between the plant's cells. This fungus is actually what gives Kentucky 31 its superpowers. It has a symbiotic relationship with the grass. The fungus produces alkaloids that protect the plant from heat, drought, insects, and overgrazing. But here's the kicker. Among these alkaloids are compounds called ergot alkaloids, and to a grazing animal, they can be very toxic. If you have ever run cattle on toxic fescue, you know exactly what this looks like: rough hair coat, slow to breed back, slow to shed their winter hair in the spring, and intolerant of the heat in the summer. We call it fescue toxicosis syndrome, and it's a massive economic drain. Nationally, we're talking about a loss of roughly one billion dollars every single year to the US cattle industry alone. It also drops performance in sheep, goats, and can be deadly to pregnant mares in the horse world. Picture a hot July afternoon. You won't see a herd grazing their tall fescue pasture because they're going to be standing belly deep in farm ponds or huddled under whatever shade they can find. If you look closely, they have thick, rough, muddy hair coats. Those mud stains happen because the animals make wallows in the dirt to try to cool down. This is because the ergot alkaloids act as vasoconstrictors. They constrict their blood vessels, restricting blood flow to the skin so the animal can't dissipate heat. It also cuts off blood flow to their extremities. In the winter, this can lead to what they call fescue foot in cattle, where hooves can actually slough off, causing severe lameness. It's also a compounding factor for the development of laminitis in horses. From a production standpoint, it destroys weight gains, tanks conception rates, drops milk production, and causes late-term abortions. A beautiful field of green fescue sure is pretty to look at, but it is a silent thief to your herd. By the late '70s and '80s, scientists and farmers figured out that this endophyte was the culprit. Naturally, the industry's first response was, "Well, we'll just get rid of the fungus." It made perfect sense on paper. In the '80s and '90s, seed companies released endophyte-free varieties of tall fescue. No fungus, no toxins, happy livestock. Except it didn't work. Producers planted these endophyte-free pastures, and within three or four years, they were completely gone, replaced by weeds and bare soil. Without that fungal partner, the tall fescue lost its armor. Seedling vigor was poor, the plants couldn't handle the dry, hot summer, and if farmers grazed them even a little too hard, the plant simply died. It proved that tall fescue needs an endophyte to survive our tough transition zone climate. Producers were stuck. Now enter the novel endophyte. But then came the breakthrough. Researchers realized that not all endophytes are created equal. They looked at other grasses, like perennial ryegrass, and found naturally occurring non-toxic strains of endophytes. They wondered, could we find something similar for tall fescue? Then they did. They isolated these non-toxic novel endophytes and transferred them into improved high-yielding tall fescue varieties. This created novel endophyte tall fescue. This plant still has a fungal partner, giving it the drought tolerance, seedling vigor, and grazing persistence of Kentucky 31. But because the fungus is different, non-toxic strain, it does not produce ergot alkaloids. You get the toughness of Kentucky 31 without the fescue toxicosis. Yet, even though these varieties have been around for over 20 years, adoption has still been slow. Why is this? Well, honestly, novel endophyte seed is a more expensive upfront cost than cheaper Kentucky 31 seed. Renovating a pasture means completely killing off your old grass and establishing a new one. That takes time and planning and effort. Plus there's a lot of confusion about the different varieties on the market as well. Let's look at the economics first. Even though the seed is pricier, the financial calculations are clear. The revenue that you gain from improved animal weight gains and higher conception rates offset that initial renovation cost in just a few years. So how do you do it? If you want to swap your Kentucky 31 for a novel endophyte variety, you can't just throw new seed over your old pasture. That old Kentucky 31 will out-compete the new seedlings, and you'll waste your money. You have to commit to a true renovation. First, you must prevent the existing Kentucky 31 from making seed heads in the spring before you plant. You don't want viable seeds falling onto your soil to germinate later. After that, you'll want to use one of the two land management plans. One is called the spray-smother-spray method, or the other is the spray-wait-spray method. If you use the spray-smother-spray method, you'll spray the toxic fescue with a non-selective herbicide in the spring. Then you'll come in and plant a warm season smother crop, something like millet or sorghum sudangrass for the summer, that has a lot of herbage mass and blocks out the light and any weeds that might germinate. And then you come back in and spray again in the late summer to kill off any residual forage mass, and then you'll come in and drill your novel fescue in the fall. With the spray-wait-spray method, you'll spray the toxic pasture in late summer, wait several weeks for any missed fescue or new seedlings to emerge, hit it with a second application of herbicide, about two weeks before planting in the fall. And then this method you'd use if you wanted to plant this fall. Obviously, we're too late to have planted a smother crop for this summer. Now let's look at the seed catalog. When you open it, you'll see terms like traditional leaf, soft leaf, MaxQ, Protek. Let's break those down. First we have traditional leaf types. This is what we're used to with Kentucky 31. The leaves are coarse, they're slightly serrated, and have sharp edges. These varieties are incredibly tough and highly resistant to overgrazing. They support great animal performance and are very forgiving if you accidentally overgraze them. Then we have soft leaf varieties. These feel much softer to the touch because they lack that sharp, serrated edge. Livestock find them incredibly palatable. They will eat more of it, which is fantastic for dairy cattle or stockers where you are wanting maximum intake. But there is a catch. Because they taste so good, animals will search for them in a pasture setting. If you have a mixed pasture, they will graze those soft leaf fescue, down closer and then ignore other forage species. If you plant a soft leaf variety, you must make sure that you are using a rotational grazing program to prevent those forages from being overgrazed. To help you navigate your options, here's a breakdown of some major commercially available novel endophyte varieties that are on the market today and are more suitable for our area in Polk County. First is the Texoma MaxQ2 from Pennington. It's a traditional leaf with early maturity. It's bred specifically for the drier western edge of the fescue belt. Jessup MaxQ2 from Pennington is a traditional leaf, also early maturing, and it's excellent for the eastern fescue belt BarOptima Plus from Barenbrug is a soft leaf that is late maturing. It's broadly adapted across the entire fescue belt. Martin II Protek from DLF Pixeed is a traditional leaf. It matures early to medium and is adapted across the entire fescue belt. And then Estancia with Arkshield from Mountain View Seeds is also a traditional leaf with, medium maturity and is also adapted across the entire fescue belt. When choosing, match the variety's maturity and regional target to your specific farm. While these seeds have a higher upfront price tag, you're buying a pasture that will last decades under good management while completely eliminating a disease that is costing you hundreds of dollars per animal every single year. It's an investment in your future herd, your farm, and your bottom line. Well, that's all I have for today's episode. A huge thank you to NC State and the Alliance for Grassland Renewal for providing the research that made this episode possible.