Pasture grass root injury caused by drought and/or wildfire can extend into the next grazing season. If grass stands have only been slightly damaged, then recovery can be quick… especially with proper weed control, fertility and deferred grazing management. However, if the stressed pastures were overgrazing, then recovery may extend beyond one growing season and require patience. Further, root injury and biomass reductions are usually more prominent on sandy soil pastures than heavier soils.
During pasture recovery, higher invasive weed numbers are usually a symptom of previous grass stress; so herbicide spraying may provide short-term benefits. The downside of herbicide applications are spraying expenses and potentially damaging non-target desirable pasture plants.
Therefore, rather than just focusing on stress symptoms such controlling invasive weeds; consider increasing pasture rest periods for grass recovery. This may mean implementing rotational grazing with periods of no grazing in each pasture during the growing season. Also, installing more cross-fences to limit grazing in target zones can aid pasture rest and recovery.
For example, a three-pastures rotation system may lengthen rest days between grazing before the cattle rotate to the next pasture. When the grass is rapidly growing, cattle may move quicker such as every 30 days through the pasture rotation. Then, as grass growth slows or drought stress occurs, grazing time in each pasture may be lengthened to 45 days. Then, pasture rotation will have more days of rest prior between grazing periods.
To further reduce the negative impacts of grazing, alternate the first pasture in the rotation at the beginning of each growing season. This will allow each pasture to be grazed annually at different times of year compared to the previous year or two.
More online Nebraska Extension grazing strategies are available at: https://beef.unl.edu and https://cropwatch.unl.edu
