We have reached the last text in our trilogy on pasture management. If you have already read the other two texts, you already know that harvesting a pasture well has incredible economic strength. It is the cheapest source of food and tends to leave more margin (money) for the agricultural business. He also understood how forage plants grow and what animals’ strategies are when they are face to face with a pasture. In this last text, we will bring all this together and talk in a very simple and easy way about how to apply the art of managing pastures in practice.
That’s right, you will see that managing pasture is an art, which involves and, logically, contains a lot of technique (understanding of processes), sensitivity, dedication, discipline and creativity.
Pastor, pick up your staff!
Managing pastures well is obviously not a recent pursuit, it goes back thousands of years and is well represented in the profession of pastoralism, one of the oldest professions in the world, which still exists today in some parts of the world. The shepherd is that guy who, early every day, takes his staff, his flock and leads them to the fields or mountains for the animals to graze. The profession of shepherd has always required a lot of observation, “taking note” of what the animals like most and offering the best for them, managing so that they do not go overboard and compromise the amount of pasture available for the coming days and months. They thus control the intensity with which animals “attack” plant leaves and the frequency with which they return to that same place. This is the “core” of pasture management, which currently on properties, we use fences to guide and offer the animals what is best for them. In fact, never forget that!!!
The big star of management: Rotational Grazing.
As you can see in the second text of this trilogy, how much animals eat per day is strongly influenced by the structure of the pasture they encounter along this journey. Furthermore, there is an optimal structure or an optimal pasture height in which the animals can eat more in less time. This is the basis of the Rotational Grazing management philosophy, which was developed by GPEP (Grazing Ecology Research Group at UFRGS) and applied in the field on all properties served by SIA.
Research has shown that in addition to there being this optimum height, in which they eat more in less time, during the lowering of the pasture, in which the animals are eating and the height is decreasing, there is a limit height, which after this point the ingestion rate drops drastically. This point is the same for perennial or annual species, with tropical or temperate climates. It should not be lowered more than 40% of the ideal entry height, after this point, it becomes very difficult for the animals to find the optimal heights in the paddock, they end up accessing the lower layers of the pasture, with few leaves, more stems and culms and your intake rate drops a lot. The figure below shows the handling heights for Rotational Grazing.
Pre and post grazing heights of Rotational Grazing.
To better understand this management philosophy, imagine the following situation (I need your creativity now): a Dutch cow, well spotted, sitting on a chair holding a spoon in its paw. This kitty loves to eat yogurt and your goal is to make her eat as much yogurt as possible throughout the day, right? To do this, we placed a table next to it, and on top of this table were a bunch of small pots of yogurt, all of them already uncovered and we just needed to reach the cow as many pots of yogurt as possible so that she could fill her belly. fast. As soon as you give her the first jars, you notice that at first the spoonfuls are full, very generous. As she takes spoonfuls and passes 40% of the pot, the spoonfuls begin to become emptier, with less yogurt, losing efficiency in the process and until she reaches the end of the pot, the spoonfuls become increasingly empty. How can we change this? Simple! Every time the kitty reaches 40% of the pot, before the spoonfuls start to get emptier, you get her a new pot and she quickly fills her belly.
This is the great logic of rotating, every time the pasture comes close to losing efficiency in the animal’s harvesting process, we offer a new pot paddock, oops, a new paddock. So you might be thinking, but should we be wasting a lot of yogurt? That’s where you’re wrong, unlike yogurt, what’s left in the paddock when we remove the animals are plants with lots of leaves, with a high capacity to capture radiation, the plants continue to grow and in a few days this paddock will be ready again to be used. grazed. A great coincidence of nature, the height that is great for the animal is also great for the plant to continue growing and this results in more meat, milk and wool per animal, as they can choose the best and by area, as the plants they do not stop growing, which results in a greater support capacity (more animals/hectare).
(Photo at Faz. Horizonte, in Diamante do Sul Paraná, 06/02/2020).
Oat pastures in rotational grazing one day after the animals left the paddock, 18cm high. Note the amount of leaves in the pasture, most of which were not even touched by the animals. Average load of 3UA/ha and the animals return to the same paddock in 8 days.
The Rotatínuo in practice!
Maybe you’re thinking: Rotational Grazing is a bit complicated, it’s unlikely to work here at home. To close the Trilogy, I’m going to give you 10 tips, which will make your job a lot easier, help you avoid making mistakes and master the art of pasture management:
1) Manage pastures within the optimum management height: never going above or below the limit heights (see height chart), maintain management within the optimum range and you will be maximizing the animals’ intake rate;
2) Make few paddocks, and speed up the rotation: as the Rotatínuo keeps many leaves on the pasture, this results in rapid growth and the large number of paddocks can cause the pasture to arrive earlier than expected, and may exceed the entry height. Tropical pastures must have no more than 4 paddocks, while temperate pastures must have less than 12 paddocks;
3) Enter before the entry height: when starting management in a new pasture, place the animals a little before the entry limit height, so that when you arrive at the last paddock it will still be within the management target. Entering right at the limit, the other paddocks continue to grow and when you reach the last paddock, it will certainly have passed the point;
4) Never shave the pastures: whatever happens, never lower them beyond the exit height, even in the case of a severe drought, graze on an hourly basis (escape area), add supplementation, but do not shave, this way you It does not force the animals to eat stems and preserves the pasture leaves, as soon as it rains again the pasture will be ready to grow.
5) Train your eye: at the beginning, take a measuring tape to measure the height of the pasture, little by little you or your collaborator will have your eyes calibrated as to when the height is optimal or not for the animals’ entry and exit;
6) One eye on the pasture and the other on the cattle: most of the team of employees are very trained to look at animals (sick, injured, etc.), but they are not used to looking at the pasture, they cannot manage a pasture well without cultivating this habit;
7) Adjust the right load: Be sensitive when starting pasture management, start with a load a little below the ideal, and increase it little by little, this helps you not to make a mistake right away. In moderate investment and fertilization, tropical pastures support 3 to 4 AU/ha, winter pastures support 1 to 2 AU/ha (UA – Animal unit of 450kg of BW);
8) If in doubt, change paddocks: if at the end of the day you look at a paddock and are unsure that if you leave the animals in it, the pasture may be below the exit height the next morning, change paddocks, better to remove it sooner than to lower it too much;
9) What counts is the average height: it is normal to find places in the paddock with pastures that are a little higher or a little lower than the entry and exit limit heights, don’t worry, what really counts is the average height of the paddock;
10) Whether continuous or rotating: Rotating is a management philosophy and not a method, keeping the animals within the optimal heights will maximize the ingestion rate, use the method you think is best, continuous or rotating and be happy :D.
Text: Armindo Barth Neto – SIA technical consultant
Images: SIA Archive
