Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Adams County grazing project specializes in possibilities

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2008

In a world of increasing feed costs and volatile markets, graziers can find comfort in new ideas that someone else already has tested.

That's how Nodaway farmer Leland Shipley sees the Adams County Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Demonstration Farm north of Corning. He recently added 60 acres to his operation, using cost-share funds to build a small pond and set water tanks and lines to serve three paddocks. He's also interested in the wildlife habitat and is contemplating the addition of warm-season grasses to diversify his pasture forages.They try a lot of new things at the farm and I've been following them for a long time," said Shipley, who has a cow-calf operation and grazes sheep. "If nothing else, if you get just one idea that can help you maintain profitability, it's a good thing," Shipley said.

Helping cattlemen profitably maintain large tracts of hilly and environmentally sensitive land in pasture is the purpose of the demonstration farm set up in 1990. The Southern Iowa Forage and Livestock Committee, which operates the 480-acre farm, secured special USDA permission to graze the land that was under CRP contract. They now demonstrate rotational grazing with three cow-calf herds, each managed using a different approach and a variety of techniques and equipment.

The Leopold Center has provided support for the farm research, demonstration and education, most recently through a five-year competitive grant from the Leopold Center Ecology Initiative that began in 2006. With millions of acres in CRP contracts expiring from 2007 through 2009, the Leopold Center grant supported:

  • stepped-up outreach, including summer interns, field days, workshops, field trips for area high school and college students;
  • research on the compatibility of grazing with wildlife nesting (possible and profitable);
  • ways to add warm season grasses to the forage mix for a longer grazing season; and
  • an economic comparison of grass and row-crop scenarios on marginal lands.

Testing a variety of grazing management techniques – and possible options for area farmers – has been most important to Brian Petersen, state grassland conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) who is working with the Adams County project. Two different ways to introduce warm season grasses is one of the recent experiments.

"I get excited talking about these paddocks because I can see some real opportunities for farmers," he said. "We're showing that these systems can work but it takes a different mindset."

He walks through an area with nearly a dozen different forages. It has cool season grasses – tall fescue, orchard and bromegrass, commonly grazed in the region. They've introduced nitrogen-fixing legumes – alfalfa, Kura clover, red clover and birdsfoot trefoil. Also in the mix are warm season grasses, best grazed mid- to late summer and again as stockpiled forage in the fall. These species include the native varieties of big and little bluestem, switchgrass and Indiangrass.

In one paddock they used the conventional method to establish a warm season grass pasture. Herbicides killed existing cool season grasses, followed by no-till drill of warm season varieties. Another herbicide application suppressed cool season grasses while warm season varieties were established, and the paddock was not grazed.

Comparatively, in another paddock they interseeded warm season grasses into the existing pasture. From mid-April to mid-May while cool season grasses grew, they allowed cattle to overgraze, which kept competition at bay while warm season grasses became established. By July 1, the cool season grasses were ready to graze again, and by the third year of the demonstration there was an adequate stand of warm season grasses in the forage mixture for grazing. If managed on a rotation, the paddock also would have stockpiled grass available by late fall, and possibly grazed up to 10 months of the year.

In a third area of warm season grass established in 1998, they interseeded legumes to supply nitrogen and enhance the quality of the forage.

"The biggest arguments against warm season grasses are that you lose a year while getting them established and that you only have a two-month grazing season," Petersen explained. "We are showing that it's possible in a managed system to continue to graze throughout the year if you have cool season grasses in the mix."

He said the hidden value lies in the 45-day rest period, from mid-May to July 1, coinciding with bird nesting season. "This gives birds the opportunity to nest and get chicks hatched and growing without livestock interference. The early grazing opens up the canopy so smaller birds can move in, and legumes provide upright structures that some species need, and attract bugs for birds to eat," he said.

NRCS soil conservationist John Klein said the Adams County project has evolved over time as the farm situation changes.

"We don't promote one way as being the best because every situation is different, so we try a variety of management techniques and projects," Klein said. "This project is particularly important to the people in southern Iowa with soils that are less than wonderful, now faced with a decision between short-term gain and converting CRP acres to cropland, or continuing to keep grassland, which obviously saves the soil and productivity of the land."

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2008