Feeding considerations when faced with drought

With most of Kansas rated in the extreme drought or exceptional drought categories on the U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest map, John Holman, Kansas State University professor of agronomy and cropping systems, focused on forage options during a drought for a recent CropTalk webinar series.

“There’s other parts of Kansas that are also in severe conditions. The only part that isn’t is northeast Kansas,” he said. “We’ve had a rough year and things are still rough.”

At the time of the early February webinar, Holman said the Climate Prediction Center’s forecasts for February, March and April were calling for below normal rainfall conditions.

“This is not good, especially if we think about spring forages,” he said. “If we’re thinking just spring forages—our planting window is extremely dry and they’re calling for continued dry conditions. So that does not bode well to try to get a spring crop established or produce very much biomass.”

Further out the CPC’s forecasts for the remainder of 2023 are more encouraging to Holman, but predicting weather this far in advance is difficult.

Livestock perspective

Holman’s hoping for changes in the precipitation levels in the coming months, especially for or those in the cattle business.

Holman cautions producers to keep in mind the prices cattle are garnering when it comes to pasture conditions and forage conditions in a drought year. During the webinar he polled the crowd and asked what feed supplies are looking like until spring forages are available. Multiple participants indicated they were already facing limited supplies and in some cases were out.

When thinking about forage or drought management, Holman believes it’s better to have a good plan today than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Having nutrient needs dialed in when supplies are tight allows a producer to best stretch those feed and work resources. He also suggests taking a hard look at livestock inventory.

Minimizing feed loss and waste when feed is expensive is very important.

Conditions in many parts of Kansas weren’t kind to those planted forages and many did not produce or barely made a dent in the need, according to Holman.

Avoid overgrazing

When looking at the grazing land, Holman said it’s really important to manage what you need in order to avoid overgrazing. Overgrazing can cause reduction in a stand and hurt it if too much above growth is removed.

“You can have increased water runoff and you get less utilization of that water.,” he said. “A healthy range will recover a lot quicker after a drought than if it is severely stressed.”

If there’s no forage to graze, the cattle need to go somewhere, and Holman suggested a confined feeding area or a sacrificial pasture or field where supplemental feeding is done until the pastures recover.

“We wanted to delay grazing of our pastures after a drought because they were stressed this past year to allow plant recovery,” he said. “If you had grazed grass last year when it’s trying to grow and that drought, when it was green that that those plants would be the most stressed because they never had a chance to store any carbohydrates.”

Try not to graze those pastures until the end of the season, allowing them an opportunity to store carbohydrates and to recover.

“You should expect to have less forage production on native range following drought,” he said. “So even if we return to normal conditions, we need to expect less forage production and annual forages can help bridge that gap in the amount of less biomass produced and also in having to give that pasture some additional rest before turnout.”

Also monitoring for weed growth after a drought is critical.

“We can have a flush of weeds and whether that might be cheatgrass or Kochia,” he said. “And we may need to do a quick rapid grazing of those of those pastures and then move the cattle somewhere else.”

If hauling hay in to feed cattle, producers also need to be mindful of the added weed pressure those bales provide.

Turnout in native pastures in Kansas often occurs in May, but Holman believes it needs to be delayed until June in order to give pastures time to recover and those spring or summer annual crops to get a foothold.

Going into springtime and thinking about planting spring or summer annual forages like triticale or oats, forage sorghum, sorghum-sudan, sudan millet or others, it’s looking pretty dismal. But finding the right type to fit the environment is critical.

But there is a risk of prussic acid with millet and the sorghum varieties—so be aware of that if going that route. Also be aware of the limitations with grazing Conservation Reserve Program or even cover crops.

“This past year most of that CRP got used. So a lot of that is not gonna be available this next year,” he said. “CRP you can only graze it every other year, or every third year, so there may be a few acres of CRP left available, but a lot of that got utilized this past year.”

When thinking about grazing winter wheat or triticale, Holman said two acres per 500 pounds of yearling weight can be achieved in the spring, targeting about 2 pounds per head gain per day.

Fall is the best time to accumulate some growth on wheat or triticale going into winter—September and October time frame.

“We can burn about 30-35 pounds of dry matter per day per acre,” he said. “And this is of course all assuming that we have plenty of water and nutrients to work with.”

Before turning out on small grains, there needs to be about 4 to 6 inches of growth to meet livestock needs and have enough regrowth to keep up with demand.

“Too much growth removal will hurt the plant, set it back and limit production,” Holman said. “But we have about 200 pounds of dry matter for every inch of plant, so that 4- to 6- inch tall plant would produce about 800 to 1,200 pounds of dry matter per acre.”

This should give you the 2-pound per day gain.

Be aware of the influence of triticale on reduced conception, but Holman said it can be remedied by removing the heifers from triticale and dry-lotting them before breeding so conception rates aren’t influenced.

The pastures in late winter and early spring need to be managed as well—setting appropriate stocking rates and taking into account how dry it is or how wet it might have been.

“We are stockpiling that growth in the fall—will help get us through the through the through that slump period where there’s not much production,” he said. “We have multiple fields we can rotate. That will help us and we have to really have to have a backup plan because the production can be highly variable.”

So what is a good plan to have in dry years like 2022 or 2023? What about those years where there’s an abundance? Holman said when it comes to the wheat crop, make the decision in the fall whether or not to insure the acres.

If it’s grazed, you could turn around and plant a forage crop, but it can be a little challenging to get an adjuster out to release those acres and be able to do something with them.

“We can either take it to grain production or if you’re short on short on feed, you can look at ensiling that crop could be an option,” he said.

Adjusters won’t probably be looking at fields until after the first stem sometime in April. But there are some options to think about with those annual crops. Grazing or baling are a couple.

“Baling is going to net more feed to be consumed,” he said. “We’re gonna have a lot of truck trampling and desiccation on feed so above 50% loss that way.”

With small grain or cereal grains there’s a little better utilization grazed than baling.

“So for very, very tight on feed supply, baling will net us more pounds of forage for feeding cattle,” he said. “We want to be sure to test feed, manage the soil for long term. Try to not take too much off to still maintain soil benefits.”

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].