How to allow for best species seedlings to establish, grow and set seed

Please remember, I will write about grass management under high to very high stocking rates, the number of productive animals carried on your ranch per year.  Everything will revolve around this.

Because the seedlings of your best species are more palatable and take a long time to put out strong enough roots to resist the pulling action of a cow wrapping her tongue on the seedling when your herd is doing selective grazing, the rest time, under selective grazing, is NOT long enough for them to establish; especially on a drought year and bare patches start to appear (in brittle environments) or undesirable species take over (in more humid environments).

If we want strong and fat roots of our best forage species the rest period needs to be long enough to allow for this.  This means when the basal leaves start to turn yellow; at this point the root reserves allow for another grazing without damage to the roots.

Besides this, the very harmful recommendation to incorrectly name selective grazing leftovers as stockpile has done much harm at high to very high stocking rates.  It is much better to set aside an area to stockpile under NO GRAZING or total rest, to use later in Winter or dry season.  Your animals will show you they agree.

I will explain this in the next subject on the weekly blog next Monday.

This is the second part of the three-part series comparing Total Grazing to selective grazing or as some call it, top grazing.

Just a reminder that we only have 24 hours left of the Saver Price for the Total Grazing Course. Click on this link to enroll.

We also have the Total Grazing + Adapted Genetics Bundle Deal available for enrollment (1st Pillar and 2nd Pillar). Click on this link to enroll.