Field day focuses on ‘300 Days of Grazing’
April 13, 2009Contact Information:
Don Hubbell, Resident Director, Livestock and Forestry Branch Station
870-793-7432 / dhubbell@uark.edu
By Fred Miller, Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas System
479-575-5647 / fmiller@uark.edu
BATESVILLE, Ark. — Every day cattle producers can extend the grazing season means savings on the cost of buying or cutting and storing hay, said Don Hubbell, resident director of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s Livestock and Forestry Research Station.
A field day April 21 at the Batesville research station will feature a 130-acre model farm designed to show producers how to keep cattle on forage as long as possible, Hubbell said. The station set aside 90 acres of fescue paddocks and 40 acres of bermudagrass paddocks. The fescue paddocks are divided between conventional varieties and novel varieties infected with non-toxic endophyte.
Cattle are rotated through the paddocks in a manner that best manages the forage grasses for long production. For example, Hubbell said, the forage is grazed to levels that delay maturation. At maturity, the plants turn a lot of energy toward reproduction, which slows growth and reduces nutritional quality.
“We want to run this model farm about three years to show people how they can let cattle graze for as long as 300 days, greatly reducing the amount of hay they have to cut and store,” Hubbell said.
The project, called “300 Days of Grazing,” was begun in 2008 in response to the skyrocketing costs of fuel and fertilizer.
“We took what we had learned from a lot of research and successful experience with cooperating cattle producers,” Hubbell said. “The model farm will show how to keep cattle production at a high level while reducing equipment, fuel and fertilizer costs to the bare minimum.”
Hubbell said the emerging economic climate led Division of Agriculture scientists to make research and trial results more immediately available to producers.
“We think the idea of putting research and experience together to develop systems you can see on the ground now will be a productive approach for cattlemen,” Hubbell said.
The field day will present an introduction and overview of the “300 Days of Grazing” project. Other topics covered will include:
• using byproduct feeds as supplements to enhance stocker calf gains,
• annual and perennial legumes overseeded in bermudagrass pastures, and
• reproduction rates and calf performance of spring- and fall-calving cows consuming toxic and nontoxic fescues.
After lunch, a field tour will cover,
• stand persistence of toxic and nontoxic fescue stands,
• annual and perennial legume plots, and
• hay storage demonstration.
The field day begins at 8:30 a.m. and is expected to end about 3:15 p.m.
To get to the Livestock and Forestry Research Station from Batesville, drive 10 miles north on Hwy. 69. Take Hwy. 106 west for two miles to the station entrance.
For more information, call the station office at 870-793-7432.