Overgrazing

[Shaggy98]

Never heard of it. Years ago we used to bale kochia that was knee high about 6 weeks after wheat harvest and the cattle loved it. We always talked about green chopping it but never did.

[bikinkawboy]

I've never  heard of any problems related to lambsquarter or pigweed being poisonous.  Cockleburr is poisonous while still in the dicotyledon stage and can kill just about any species of animal in short order.  I believe the only way lambsquarter could be poisonous would be from nitrate poisoning.  Around her last summer many people were salvaging their drought ruined corn by chopping it for silage and high nitrate was a problem on some fields.  Heck, my sister bought some nice alfalfa hay from this area and it tested way high in nitrates, forcing her to dilute it with grass hay.  High  nitrate hay is a rarity indeed.  And I have heard ot pigweed being high in nitrates during drought, but that too is pretty rare.

Prussic acid poisoning is a real threat for a period of time with frost killed sorghums, sudans and other warm season grass annuals.  Pearl millet is about the only one that isn't effected, although it can have high nitrates during drought.  

[bikinkawboy]

shaggy, unless you're in the upper Midwest and northeast, it's no surprise you haven't heard of orchardgrass.  It is a very early maturing cool season perennial.  In north central Missouri it will be heading out by May 1st in an ordinary year, although it looks like it may be July first this year unless it starts warmingup soon.  In a mature state, heat and drought can turn it grom green to brown in 2-3 days.  Keep it in a vegetative state and it is quite drought tolerant though, every bit as good as fescue believe it or not.  Speaking from experience here.  It is very palatable and in a single pasture system, livestock will overgraze it and ignore fescue, resulting in it disappearing within a few years.  Long term, it tends to be a decliner as opposed to fescue being an increaser in the central or lower Midwest.  Years ago my sister took a small bag of orchardgrass seed back to central Florida to her dairy farm.  It did well over winter while the weather was cool, but it all died the following summer.

[Longcreekfarms]

Without proper rotation, orchardgrass has never stood a chance for pasture around here. Fescue can take the beating that it can't. My biggest issue with fescue is that it raises body temp which hurts getting cattle rebred. A few dry years in a row can devastate OG for pasture. Makes an excellent hay when made right though. The ole girls will chase the tractor down 😉

[bikinkawboy]

As for fescue raising the animal's body temperature, it's actually the endophyte fungus that most long established fescue has.  The endophyte makes the plant much more drought tolerant and able to handle physical damage, but it constricts the blood vessels of a cow, causing them to run a low grade fever.  The restricted blood flow is also what causes ears, tails and feet to freeze off in the winter.  Endophyte really works on horses, causing conception problems as well as what's called "red bag", where the placenta thickens so much that it doesn't tear at birth, resulting in a dead foal still in the placenta.

The new novel endophytes are the best of both worlds, imparting the surviability to the plant without causing the harmful side effects to animals.  Endophyte is spread by the seed and for a plant to be infected, it has to have originated from an infected seed.  A uninfected plant growing next to an infected plant will never become infected.  The uninfected plant may die due to harsh conditions and be replaced by a plant growing from an infected seed of the infected plant though.  Infected seed can also be spread by going through the animal's digestive system and by hay equipment.   A few years after planting alfalfa, I could tell exactly where I started baling the field by the strip of fescue growing.  

Many claim that endophyte free fescue is not persistant, but I have some Barenbrug endophyte free that is over 12 years old and is still going strong.  And not all fescue is infected and even in infeected stands, there is usually some E- free plants.  One reason is that the fungus can live for only about a year without a living host, meaning that infected seed setting around for over 12 months will likely have lost the live fungus.  Seed in the ground for over a year will also come up E free.  Hot temperatures also kills the fungus.  A sack of seed setting over the summer inside of a hot, metal grain bin will likely also be free or nearly free by fall.  The heat may lower seed germination some, but it really works on the fungus.

When I design a grazing system, I like to have a sacrafice area for winter feeding and if it has E+ infected fescue, so much the better.  Cows can tromp it into a quagmire over winter and by late summer the grass is back and looking good.  A word of caution,, NEVER plant turf type (lawns) fescues because they are always heavily E+ infected as a way to insure longevity and persistance of the lawn.  The heavy infection will cost you plenty is lost animal performance.  Years ago in the Pacific northwest and south British Columbia, animals died after being fed straw residue produced when harvesting E+ turf fescues for seed. 

[Shaggy98]

You are correct, reading what you are all posting, our Central Kansas climate will not support orchard grass. We are primarily brome grass.

[bikinkawboy]

You know shaggy, I used to hate Kansas because any time I rode my motorcycle to Colorado or further, in Kansas it was always 100F+ with the wind blowing 100 mph.  Over the years, I've gotten quite fond of Kansas.  There is such a varied climate and topography across the state as well as countless interesting places to see and things to do.  When your (then) 16 year old daughter says she's wants to go back and see more, that's saying a lot.  And the treeless, far reaching horizons of western KS that is so miserable in mid-afternoon in the summer turns into a beautiful vista in early morning and evening and non-summer months.  And when compared to the traffic in Denver or Chicago, the couple of stop sigh towns like Leoti, Johnson City and Hill City look pretty good.  Or like the stretch of I-15 from Ogden, through Salt Lake City and down to Provo.  I kept track and it was 53 miles of heavy traffic and urban encroachment.  I was never so glad to hit the desolate desert along Rt 6 in my whole life.   

[Shaggy98]

You definitely described Kansas to a Tee. I've lived here my entire life & can't imagine living anywhere else. After a while the weather extremes just become the norm. Glad you've grown to appreciate it, and please visit often.