I just read another article in a popular livestock publication about how someone is using grazing for weed control. Sometimes they time the grazing to hit the weeds when they are most vulnerable. Sometimes they train the animals to prefer the weeds. I don't dispute that we can get livestock to graze the weeds and that doing so can be a valuable thing, but this strategy focuses on the symptom, the weed, not the core problem, the health of our pastures.
Somewhere along the line people started to believe that weeds make land unhealthy. But it is the other way around. Weeds appear because land is unhealthy. This is more than semantics. It is a major paradigm shift to accept that there is a difference between a weed-free pasture and a healthy pasture, and that the steps one takes to control the weeds (with a sprayer, a mower, or a critter) are fundamentally different than the steps one takes to produce a healthy pasture.
There are millions of viable weed seeds on nearly every acre of range and pasture land. The annual assault of weed seeds to our properties is huge and relentless. It doesn't solve anything to graze the weeds we see this year because more will grow next year, unless we change the conditions that allow the weeds to out-compete more desirable species.
Grazing weeds does not necessarily improve the health of desirable species, nor will it necessarily improve the water and mineral cycles or improve energy flow. Manage grazing to favor these processes and most of the time weeds just won't be an issue. Participants in our Ranching For Profit Schools see pictures of pastures choked with weeds where, in a very short time, desirable forages out competed the weeds. The seed bank is still full of weed seeds. Weed seeds still fly in annually from the neighbors. But by grazing to improve basic ecosystem processes and grow grass, rather than kill weeds, the desirables have been given a huge competitive advantage. We will save money, soil and stress by focusing on the healthy pastures we want to create rather than on the weeds we want to kill.
Ranch Management Consultants
Healthy Land, Happy Families & Profitable Businesses
Website: http://www.ranchingforprofit.com |
Dave Pratt
Ranch
Management
Consultants
rmc@ranchmanagement.com
Phone: 707.429.2292
rmc@ranchmanagement.com
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