Records of gopher bounties and provincial holidays for gopher hunting go back to 1917, but a lot of research has gone into the effectiveness of predatory mammals and birds.

Foxes, weasels, snakes and badgers are efficient rodent hunters, said James Tansey, provincial insect and vertebrate pest management specialist with the Saskatchewan government. A single badger can drop a local population of gophers by at least 50 per cent in a season. If left unbothered, they’ll stick around in an area that has plenty to eat, he said.

Part of Melanie Dubois’s research has been counting the badgers left on the Prairies. She has seen significant drops in British Columbia and Ontario, said the senior riparian and biodiversity biologist with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and Living Labs Manitoba co-lead.

Badgers in B.C. and Ontario are listed as a federally endangered species. Population counts have been all over the map, said Dubois, and there is concern for their numbers on the Prairies. Saskatchewan experienced a “perfect storm” of drought stress, more gophers and fewer predators a couple of years back, she added.

There have been programs to reduce coyote numbers as well, said Dubois, and the danger coyotes pose to livestock herds is a valid concern for farmers and ranchers. However, reducing predator numbers does mean an increase in pests such as gophers, she said.

While they are effective hunters on their own, coyotes and badgers increase their hunting efficiency when they work together, a partnership that has been documented in the Journal of Mammology as well as on film and game cameras.

Birds of prey, such as barn owls, ferruginous hawks and northern harriers, live on a steady diet of adult gophers and other small mammals during a season, said Tansey. American kestrels are too small to take down adult gophers but thrive on juvenile gophers, as well as grasshoppers and other agricultural pests, he said.

Raptor platforms and nesting boxes can be a welcome and cost-effective addition to any pasture.

Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives has investigated many nature controls, said general manager Mary-Jane Orr, including ferruginous hawk nesting structures through a partnership with Land and Water Management and Assiniboine Community College.

According to the final 2020 report, one ferruginous hawk pair can consume up to 500 gophers in a single breeding season, making areas with abundant gophers ideal for nesting structures. The report also noted that ferruginous hawks have seen a loss of habitat and have been on the endangered species list for the last 40 years.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities Gopher Control Program covers 50 per cent of the cost of ground squirrel population controls, including Richardson’s, Franklin’s, thirteen-lined and the northern pocket gopher. Registered chemical controls and materials for raptor boxes are eligible for the program.

Dubois has been analyzing costs for gopher controls. All cost time and money, she said. “There are poisons that are still available, certain types of rodenticides that are out there. There’s trapping. There’s shooting.”

For scouting purposes, Tansey said 20 per cent damage to crops within a 100-metre walk or one to two active mounds within two strides indicate enough gophers to warrant control.

Climate and weather are major contributing factors for gopher populations on the Prairies, he said. Slow crop establishment last spring allowed more rodents to establish themselves farther into fields than Tansey had ever seen.

“And then you get a bit of feedback loop going, because they don’t like vegetation over about 15 centimetres. They’re reducing the stand, increasing in numbers and increasing damage.”

There has been talk of a gopher boom this year, said Tansey, but with experts expecting a warmer spring with adequate moisture, conditions should be less advantageous to gophers. But Tansey said they will still be keeping an eye on gopher numbers in Saskatchewan.

Farmers have been left with one less tool in their arsenal with the 2024 Health Canada ban on strychnine. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities is still pushing for the federal government to reverse the ban, saying other alternatives are not as effective for population control.

The goal is not to eradicate gophers but to manage the damage done, said Tansey. It is a balancing act between integrating biological and cultural controls that work for farmers and their operations, he added.

Helping predators establish a home can provide free pest control, but there are some trade-offs. Badger holes can be just as destructive as gopher burrows, especially in pastureland, and some hawks also feed on songbirds and grouse.

“You’re creating habitat and biodiversity on the landscape, and that’s a huge positive. But there’s a balance point to finding how best to live with that diversity, so that it’s not impacting your equipment and impacting your overall productivity,” said Orr.

Tansey said there needs to be some tolerance of gophers and their predators in any management practice. “If they’re not causing trouble, there’s no reason to control them.”

The post How farmers and ranchers can manage a gopher boom appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

Wayne Knight, executive director for Holistic Management International, is originally from South Africa, a country known for drought and dry conditions. Because of his background, he’s learned to always be prepared for drought.

“I remember doing a training where the presenter said, ‘You’re either recovering from drought or you’re planning for drought’,” he says. “And I think that’s a really good way to look at this.”

Knight presented his tips and steps to managing land and finances during drought at the Holistic Management Conference at Assiniboia, Sask., on February 8. His main point is to create a plan for any disruptions to the operation, and stick to it.

When planning for drought, three things should be top of mind: land health and management, animal conditions and finances. These should guide choices made in the plan, Knight explains. When producers notice it getting drier, they should ask themselves what they’ll do and identify decisions they’ll have to make, he adds.

Know how much forage or feed is available

Using a measurement method such as STAC (short for sole, toe, ankle, calf) or by the measurement of tonnes per hectare or stock days per acre, calculate the amount of forage available during a season with normal moisture. STAC is performed by walking through a pasture or field and measuring the forage relative to your leg. It’s a holistic management practice to measure how much forage is available in an area.

The measurement is paired with a rainfall analysis of the past 25 years to determine the pattern of moisture, such as when rain typically arrives, and the “green date” — that is, the date when a field begins to green up.

Know the herd’s forage demands

This step is critical to determining how much forage is needed for a standard animal’s daily consumption per acre. It measures the forage needed for the current herd size and when livestock’s needs outweigh available forage. If you have a reliable “green date” and you’ve measured the forage needed for the herd, you’ll know how many animals you can keep, and how many you can buy hay for or find grazing for elsewhere, Knight says.

Match animals to forage

Using the calculations of the previous two steps, producers can determine their stock feed requirements and potential trigger dates. Trigger dates are tied to the number of stock days available based on average forage growth and seasonal moisture variation, and how these compare to stock days needed for herd size.

Knight says the calculations will tell farmers how many livestock units they need to sell, and how many stock days they have. “Is that balancing what the herd needs? And with that number, you’ve got immediate decisions to make.”

The other piece of this matching game is to determine which animals are kept and which are to be sold. To ease decision-making, Knight recommends a stock flow chart or tier system.

Farmer Calvin Gavelin, who sat on the drought management panel, has employed the tier system himself. Gavelin says he does it to be prepared in a drought scenario.

First, in the spring, he separates his automatic culls into a pasture, so they can be sold whenever he needs to do so. Then, when it’s time to pull his bulls, he separates any dry cows to further eliminate grass pressure. His final step is to pull yearlings and sell those if he must.

However, Knight warns, keep future herd structure in mind when making these plans and try not to be too rash. He used a scenario of low cow prices and high heifer prices, in which the immediate reaction would be to sell heifers. But how would selling too many heifers affect the operation in two or three years? The farmer would likely see reduced cash flow, as there wouldn’t be enough young cows, he explains.

Act quickly

In a drought situation, producers should prioritize forage health. While animal performance is important, it’s a “definite second.” The best way to secure a strong build-back is by keeping the land healthy.

Knowing which animals to eliminate, and when, reduces stress on both the producer and the land. Between calculations and observations, a producer can create a grazing plan year-to-year that will provide potential “trigger” dates to pull tiers of animals.

Knight explains these dates likely won’t be the exact right time to destock or sell, but they will provide a timeline. Near these dates is when producers should consider the land health, available moisture, herd numbers and livestock prices — and be ready to act as needed.

If a producer hasn’t planned for drought, or doesn’t want to, it’s essential to at least know the variables and understand the numbers, he says. Being able to recognize the balance of animals to forage, forage growth and available moisture, and when to keep versus sell, are as important as having a hard plan.

The post Drought preparation is better than reaction appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

I was in my early 20s, working a summer job at a nearby campground at Bright Sand Lake that day. There was also a big fire north of us, and at first we thought the smoke was from that fire. But word got out pretty quickly, and by that evening many locals were hauling five-gallon water pails, operating heavy equipment and wielding spades, alongside the full-time firefighters.

The fire burned for weeks, and when it was all said and done, several cabins and houses were destroyed at Turtle Lake and neighbouring Thunderchild First Nation. It was bad, but it could have been worse. If the fire had gotten a toehold in the Divide Forest, which stretches between Turtle and Meadow Lake, it would have been impossible to knock back.

We are, in many ways, living with the consequences of decades of fire suppression — not that I blame anyone for suppressing fires, especially near homes and communities. But as readers are surely aware, once we remove fire from the system, undesirable things start to happen. Fuel loads build. Shrubs and Kentucky blue grass encroach on pasture. Forests and grasslands don’t renew themselves the way they did after a blaze.

Obviously we can’t just let the prairies and forests burn like they once did. And intentionally burning the landscape carries risk, even in controlled situations. But people are doing it in targeted ways while mitigating risk. And it’s no surprise that researchers are teaming up with people in agriculture to do it. Read more about it in Melissa Jeffers-Bezan’s feature on prescribed burns — our second cover story about fire this spring alone.

• READ MORE: Range Rider program helps B.C. ranchers threatened by wildfires

I’ve said it before, but farmers and ranchers are systems managers. There is much within these natural systems that is outside of one’s control or influence (such as the weather), but there are many levers we can pull to try to shift things. For example, managing your stocking rates and grazing in a way that allows plants to recover from drought and encourages tillering. Or trying to keep a lid on gopher populations, whether that’s through an available rodenticide or by building a home for raptors. Or knowing what you’re putting in the ground by sending forage seed samples for testing. Speaking of forage, Reynold Bergen’s Research on the Record column has a great backstory about how they started funding forage research through the check-off. It’s a great example of how producers can see research or policy gaps that affect their operations, and work with producer organizations to plug those gaps in the system.

None of this is easy. We can do our best, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do, and we can never guarantee the outcome. And, of course, things are always changing, so just when everything’s dialed in, something happens to throw the whole thing off. But we can inform ourselves, manage risk and look for opportunities.

I live in the transition zone between boreal forest and parkland, which means we get to worry a bit about grassfires before things green up, as well as forest fires such as the one that scorched the shore of Turtle Lake years ago. As I write this column in mid-May, my area is under the usual spring fire ban, which this year includes a ban on recreational ATV use. Despite the snow this winter, it seems very dry to me. I went riding in the Divide Forest in early May, and the clay fire guard was like concrete, the other trails were bone-dry and some of the wetlands looked low on water. I rode into a swath of standing dead trees, but turned around quickly, as they were creaking and snapping in the wind. Besides worrying about one falling on my head, I couldn’t help thinking those dried-out trees would light up like match sticks.

I don’t think I’m particularly knowledgeable about wildfires, but I’ve learned a few things since the Turtle Lake fire in 2002. Don’t run heavy equipment when it’s really dry, or before things green up. Forest fires can smoulder underground, in the muskeg, and flare up elsewhere days or weeks later. That’s something to keep in mind when burning brush piles over the winter in these areas. I’ve learned that spruce trees are very flammable, but green poplars can slow a blaze. From this magazine, I’ve learned a bit about grazing pilots in B.C. to reduce wildfire loads, and I’ve certainly noticed a difference between bush pastures that are grazed, versus recreational land where the underbrush is not managed at all. I’ve thought about different fire scenarios in my area, and how they might affect my particular town, and my home.

As I write this, Manitoba is struggling mightily with wildfires, and two people have died in a wildfire near Lac du Bonnet, Man. My heart goes out to those communities. We need to learn to better manage wildfires. We’re learning, but are we learning fast enough and well enough to keep up with changing conditions? That, I really don’t know.

The post Comment: Trying to keep ahead of the fire appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

One way of managing this is through fire.

At the Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference, Eric Lamb and Renny Grilz presented recent research regarding prescribed burns, as well as what the potential benefits are for producers who may use fire in their management practices. However, there is still much research to be done, and a lot to know to effectively and safely work with fire.

Effects of prescribed burns

Though Eric Lamb started out as a general grassland ecologist, his research led him toward prescribed burns. Now, that is his main research focus at the University of Saskatchewan.

Historically, wildfires were common in grasslands and necessary for evolution. However, once people started managing native grasslands for cattle and livestock production, they suppressed fires. Lamb says some pastures he works on haven’t been burned in 90 to 100 years when it used to occur every two to five years.

“I’ve been becoming much, much more active in research on that side of things, saying, ‘Well, if we think fire is more important for management, we need more and better information on exactly when, exactly how much, to achieve particular goals.’”

Lamb says there are many benefits to using fire to manage grasslands. Not only is it a way to push back unwanted things like shrubs, but it also benefits forage quality.

Forages that grow in a grassland post-burn have a higher protein content and a lower fibre content. That means for every bite of grass, the cattle get more nutrients than they would have before the burn.

The grass is easier to access in the early spring days of grazing because the litter was burned in the fire.

“What we see, in a recently burned area, is the grazers will seek those locations out as kind of a preferred grazing area,” Lamb says.

While there has not been research done in Canada to say whether this has changed the health of the cattle grazing recently burned land, research has been done down south. In the U.S., some studies have found the cattle have better weight gain.

In addition to pushing back woody shrubs and removing excessive litter, prescribed burns can also be used to target specific invasive species, such as Kentucky bluegrass. In certain situations, people can protect buildings from future wildfires by burning around them.

“We often view fire as a danger to infrastructure but remember that we can also use fire to remove fuel under safe conditions, and this reduces the risk of wildfire conditions,” Lamb says.

Current research

Lamb is now starting a research project in the Foam Lake Community Pasture. He is focusing on how prescribed burns can affect shrub control and comparing different treatments to see which are the most effective at keeping shrubs back for longer.

“One of the problems with any method for woody plant control is the plants just come back,” Lamb says.

Because of this, it takes several years of effort to really knock the shrubs back. The research will examine if there is a benefit to a mixed approach in dealing with the shrubs, such as using a herbicide one year and a prescribed burn the next.

“It may well be that there’s some more effective combinations of control methods with fires being only one of the potential tools in your toolbox.”

The research is funded by Saskatchewan’s Agriculture Demonstration of Practices and Technologies program.

There is more research going on through the University of Saskatchewan. Renny Grilz is the resource management officer with the Meewasin Valley Authority in Saskatoon, where he oversees prairie restoration, prescribed fire management and targeted grazing programs.

He has been involved with many prescribed burn projects, including one at the Spy Hill Community Pasture and one at the Aberdeen Community Pasture.

At both community pastures, the goals were the same: reduce shrub and tree encroachment, attract livestock into the burned area of the pasture, reduce excessive litter accumulation and reduce wildfire risk. The burn unit in Aberdeen was around 23 acres that had been left ungrazed for 15 years. They’ve done one prescribed burn and have seen many benefits, as it burnt down a large portion of aspen and willow oaks. They hope to do more burns soon.

In Spy Hill, the burn unit was 850 acres. They were very concerned about the risk of wildfire, and so they did a large-scale burn. After that burn, aspen regrowth was set back.

“They’re expecting they’re probably going to have to do a fire in three or four years again to try and knock back some more of that aspen,” Grilz says.

What producers should know

Despite all this research, there is still more that needs to be done to increase the knowledge about the effects fire may have on grasslands. For example, Lamb says there are many benefits for native prairie, but not enough research has been done on the tame grass side.

Producers can start implementing prescribed burns if they feel inclined, but safety must be ensured.

Lamb recommends everyone get training from the Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange. The online course, available at grasslandfire.ca, takes 15 hours and the current price is under $200.

After the course, people should do practical training before attempting a prescribed burn. Lamb recommends finding local groups already doing prescribed burns and joining their fire crew. Doing so gives people boots-on-the-ground experience with a prescribed burn. Lamb says often, working on these fire crews will help people form a prescribed burn association, where neighbours can help each other out when necessary.

“Because ultimately, it’s neighbours helping each other to manage lands within their local area. And if you can build up something like that, along with support from your… (municipal) fire department and things like that, it’s quite possible that this can be done very safely and at a big enough scale to actually make a difference for management.”

Some of these prescribed burn associations already exist. Lamb says in Saskatchewan, they are mostly associated with some level of government. These groups are usually part of the Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange.

If a producer is doing a prescribed burn, the frequency of burning depends on their goals, whether it’s improving forage, pushing back shrubs or minimizing litter.

For example, after a burn, it usually takes forages five years to produce at the volume before the burn, so producers would want to wait at least five years between burns. But if someone is trying to repress woody shrubs or trees, Lamb says they might want to burn every other year or every three years. Then, they might not have to burn again for a decade.

Regardless of why a producer is burning pasture, to be successful and safe, people need to have respect for the fire.

“Fire can be a destructive force. But in grasslands, it can also be a renewing force.” c

Melissa Jeffers-Bezan is a field editor for Canadian Cattlemen and a graduate of the University of Regina School of Journalism. She grew up on a commercial cattle farm in western Manitoba, and is now based out of Regina.

The post Reintroducing fire to Saskatchewan pastures appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

At the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing in Edmonton, Alta., in December 2024, Baerg presented on a panel with two other producers, focusing on livestock and soil health. Standing in front of a room filled to bursting, Baerg spoke about the work he is doing on his operation and the effect the conference has had on his management. 

“I was just thinking about the first time I came to this conference, and how changing it was for me. There was a lot of new ideas, a lot of processing to do, and it’s really helped shape how I view things,” Baerg says. 

Cows and grain

Baerg and his wife, Dawn, run Ribbon Creek Ranch near Linden, Alta. The farm has been in Baerg’s family since 1972, under his grandfather. Now, Baerg continues to work on the grain side of the farm with his father and runs a cow-calf operation with his wife.

The cattle side started as a backgrounding operation, but after acquiring more pasture land, they turned it into a cow-calf operation.

Now, he makes sure cattle pass over all their land — whether it is used only for livestock or grain.

“I grew up on a grain farm, but I’m passionate about managing grassland and my cows.”

Baerg has invested time and energy into learning about the environment, sustainable and regenerative practices, and his own operation, taking courses such as Ranching for Profit. In 2022, Ribbon Creek Ranch was named the Alberta Environmental Stewardship Award winner. He is also a director of Foothills and Forage Grazing, and he has used this organization to help with the management of his operation. 

Regenerative grazing

Cash crops are still a staple for Baerg — but he is managing them differently now.

“We started putting cows back on the land many years ago and started for economics. It was a cheap way to winter the cows, but by now, I’ve seen the benefits of it.” 

The principles of regenerative agriculture and soil health are the same for grain farming as ranching: soil armour, minimizing soil disturbance, plant diversity, continual live plant/root and livestock integration. Baerg adheres to these principles through grazing, no till through a disc drill, rotating cattle for grazing and planting polycultures.

“The benefit of the ranching is using no synthetics. On the annual crops, there is more biomass grown on average … (which allows) more nutrients cycled per acre. Each practice has its place,” Baerg wrote in an email. 

One of the pillars of Baerg’s operation is year-round grazing, and he uses his cropland to make this happen. His cattle graze crop residue in the winter, which helps provide a nutrient-dense feed. In the past, he underseeded his cash crops with clover to supply grazing after the cash crops were harvested.

“What are some of the challenges and the benefits of just putting our cattle back onto cropland?” Baerg asks. “Because a lot of us have access to a lot of cropland around us. Some of it’s our own, some of it might be neighbours’, and the benefit of doing that is huge.” 

Baerg has converted some cropland into grassland and is including perennials in his rotation because it is hard to find grazing land in his area. He says with markets the way they are right now, he has found it profitable to plant perennials. 

“I’ve had friends tell me, ‘You’re going backwards,’ and it’s all right. But I’m really enthused to have perennials in a mix, on a rotation on my farm, just for what it’s doing for me.” 

Year-round grazing

Baerg also uses chaff piles in his year-round grazing program. He shares a chaff collector with his neighbour which he uses to collect the chaff into piles for when he opens those fields to his cattle.

Having piles of chaff is also useful in the winter because it makes the feed a little more accessible to the animals.

“Snow doesn’t seem to bother them. They can chug through a lot of snow to get to a pile. They’ll put their heads in and they eat and they clean it up pretty well.”

The calves learn how to dig through the snow for forage from their mothers. 

When chaff grazing, Baerg supplements for energy and protein. He says it depends on the crop yield and the weather, alongside other factors.

“You have to learn your cows. You have to learn their needs. And you have to have a really good mineral package, because it is residue, and you have to be really careful with that.” 

He also uses swath grazing and bale grazing on his operation. Baerg loves the matter left after his cattle have left a paddock or pasture in the winter because he knows there will be future benefits that come with it. 

“To me, that’s beautiful,” he says. “Look at all those nutrients I’ve been able to put on that piece of land that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. So that’s just one other aspect of the cattle that are on the land and spreading our nutrients out.” 

Baerg has seen benefits from grazing this way. Places where grazing occurs will usually turn green before the rest of the land in the spring. 

The nutrients from both the cattle and the leftover feed provide something synthetic fertilizers can’t. On his cropland, his agronomist recognizes that. 

“He said we have moved the needle …he said, ‘I’m recommending 30 to 50 per cent less fertilizer needs because of what the animals have done.’ So I was pretty excited.” 

Water

With their cattle grazing all year round and moving across all their land, Baerg says one of the biggest challenges is water access. That’s why it is important to have a water plan.

“When we’re grazing in a variety of places, we have to have water, and we have to start planning ahead. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, I want to put cattle out there next week,’ because how am I going to water them?” 

What has worked best for him is an above-ground pipe. This has helped him get water to the top of the hills in his area, which prevents the lowlands from being overgrazed. 

He also uses portable solar-powered water systems. In the winter, he uses a solar-powered portable water system that activates when the cattle walk up to it as a wet well. 

“That is the most trouble-free water I have on my place — works really well.” 

Next generation

The regenerative journey isn’t a linear one. Baerg says he is constantly learning and adapting — that’s why events like the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing are so beneficial. The conference gives farmers and ranchers a chance to look at what others are doing and learn new practices to implement on their operation.

Baerg is still doing new things. Now, he would like to keep learning and observing his environment and adapt accordingly. He wants to expand his operation and create space for his children to come back to the farm if they want. 

“Are we done? No, but we’re on a journey,” Baerg says of regenerative agriculture. 

So, he continues to attend the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing. “Here we are, how many years later? Still learning, still glad to be here.”

– Melissa Jeffers-Bezan is a field editor for Canadian Cattlemen and a graduate of the University of Regina School of Journalism. She grew up on a commercial cattle farm in western Manitoba, and is now based out of Regina, Sask.

The post Farmer incorporates cattle into grain operation to boost soil health appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

In a one-hour presentation at the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing in Edmonton, Alta. on December 12, he passed some of that knowledge on to conference attendees.

“If you own soil, we have to be able to look at what we’re doing and be able to see the changes. The power of observation is many times much greater than the data that goes with that observation,” Bieber said at the start of his presentation.

Bieber is a retired farmer from South Dakota, U.S. He travels the world, talking and teaching about soil health. Though his son has now taken over their operation, known as Soil Care, Bieber is still passionate about farming and soil.

When he started, though, it wasn’t to fix his soil – it was to cut costs and increase profits. The benefits to his soil came along with that.

To him, the most important part of soil health is letting the biology in the soil do what comes naturally.

“I’m just basically asking my soil biology, ‘do your job,’” Bieber said.

He said he saw the most success on their operation by doing a combination of long-term no-till and cover cropping. It’s important to keep the soil covered, to protect the biology, he said. If the soil is exposed, then the  soil’s biology will be disturbed by things like rain and chemicals.

“Look at tillage as being a disturbance, and it is,” Biever said. “That’s a physical disturbance. But we also have our biological disturbances, the herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, pesticides, they’re biological disturbances that cause the biology to not perform in balances.”

Bieber also used a version of adaptive rotational grazing, with both pastureland and on their cover crops. He said cows help with soil health because they move organic matter around with their grazing.

“These are our biological distributors because they’re taking what’s out on that native range land, and they’re bringing it out, and they’re spreading it very uniformly throughout our field,” he said. “That’s all we need. We don’t need to have that full coverage of manure out there, as long as we have it like that.”

Bieber said in addition to the cattle, the diversity of the plants grown has to support what the livestock bring to the land. He says it is important to listen to what your land is telling you and then to respond.

“We keep getting told, ‘Do it here, do it there. This is how to do it.’ But we never get the answers of why, and your soils will tell you the why.”

The Western Canada Conference on Grazing and Soil Health ended Thursday afternoon after three days and over 15 speakers. Topics ranged from cover crops and intercrops, grazing methods, types of forages to use, microbes and microbiomes and more.

The post South Dakota farmer focuses on soil biology appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

He initially got his undergrad in forestry in Brazil, but when he came to Canada to do his master’s, he knew it would be in soil science.

“Even during my undergrad, I worked with soil remediation in relation to heavy metals. So, it wasn’t too much of a change to go from that to grazing management and carbon sequestration.”

Agriculture has always played a major role in his life. Sobrinho grew up on a ranch in Brazil where his family raised beef cattle. He says in some ways, agriculture in Brazil isn’t that different from Canada, but in other ways, it’s a vastly different place. For example, he says in Brazil, people are not as concerned about the productivity of their pastures because they have year-long grazing. He says grazing management is more advanced in Canada than in Brazil.

For the work Sobrinho does regarding soil science, these differences are beneficial to his work and are part of the reason he made his way to Canada to continue his education.

“When it comes to soil health and carbon sequestration here, we are much more concerned about that compared to home. So, producers overall are more aware about their impact on their land, on carbon sequestration, on ecological sustainability overall and that’s something that I enjoy a lot.”

This is one of the main things that Sobrinho loves about Canada — the advanced grazing management and the focus on soil health and carbon sequestration.

“Whenever I talk to producers, they’re very well informed. They have a good baseline of what it takes to increase productivity while being good stewards of the land.”

Now, Sobrinho is the research manager at the Olds College Technology Access Centre for Livestock Production. His work primarily focuses on grazing management and pasture productivity, looking specifically at soil health and environmental sustainability. He also focuses on the validation of new technologies that could help producers manage their cattle.

Rising plate metre

At Olds College, Sobrinho is trialling the rising plate metre, which helps producers estimate available pasture.

Created by the New Zealand company Jenquip, this product estimates pasture cover based on height and density. It takes approximately 30 readings in each pasture, and the average of those readings is shown on the display of the plate metre.

Sobrinho says usually a producer must guess how much grass their pastures have based on what it looks like and how many animals they have. When rotational grazing, this can be risky, because pastures need to be rested and can’t be overgrazed. Sobrinho says if a pasture is overgrazed, it might lose productivity.

There is no guesswork involved with the rising plate metre. Producers can more accurately calculate the grazing days in a given area, so producers can plan their rotational grazing,

However, it must be calibrated for pastures in different parts of the world. Right now, it’s calibrated for New Zealand, the U.S. and parts of Canada, but not Alberta.

So, Sobrinho and the researchers at Olds are working to calibrate it for Alberta.

“We started collecting samples in our pastures at the college. Last year we collected some samples from another number of properties around Olds and our objective is to increase the number of pastures over time.”

Sobrinho says it’s important to conduct this type of research because it allows producers who are rotationally grazing to effectively use their land and improve their management.

“If you don’t manage your fields very well, then you’re not actually rotationally grazing properly. You don’t have all the benefits that you should.”

Currently, there is not a specific research project that covers the rising plate metre, as it is primarily used for operational purposes. However, Sobrinho says they are looking for research funding so they can collect more samples to calibrate this technology for Alberta.

According to the Jenquip website, the rising plate metre costs NZ $1,035, or around C $853.

Satellite imagery

Olds College is also trialling satellite imagery that, like the rising plate metre, supports rotational grazing.

For this project, they are working with Wyvern, an Edmonton-based space data company that offers satellite imagery to enable precision agriculture and in-season crop monitoring.

Sobrinho says the satellites collect hyperspectral imaging, which means they process information across the electromagnetic spectrum. Objects and materials can be identified solely by their unique spectral signatures.

At Olds College, they are using this technology to estimate forage biomass availability and quantify the differences between multiple paddocks.

“Because we’re doing much more data from each area, one of the types of data that you can collect is the visual composition of the winter forages,” Sobrinho says.

At the virtual Sustainability of Canadian Agriculture Conference, Sean Thompson of Olds College presented the technology, explaining how hyperspectral imaging can create a yield map for the pasture and can convey what the estimated yield would be for that paddock.

“This essentially helps eliminate that subjectivity from visual assessment,” Thompson said.

Sobrinho says he thinks it’s effective because, for rotational grazing, it captures a larger area than the rising plate metre.

“Now, the interesting thing is when we compare both the rising plate metre to the satellite imagery, the rising plate metre has a lower error compared to the satellite, which was a bit surprising. But it just goes to show that technologies vary a lot in the way that they’re implemented and also their accuracy.”

He says whichever technology producers would choose to use depends on their willingness to implement technology. Satellite imagery is more difficult to learn because you must know about geographic information system software, whereas the rising plate metre is more straightforward.

The Technology Access Centre for Livestock Production received $440,000 in funding for this research from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Soil biologicals

Another research project underway at Olds College is regarding soil biological additives from the company AdvancedAg. Their product, which is used to improve soil, consists of five bacteria types, called ACF-SR. It includes bacteria such as Rhodopseudomonas palustris, which enhances soil bioactivity and nitrogen fixation; Bacillus licheniformis, which enhances soil bioactivity and provides plant growth hormones; Notrosomonas Europaea, which converts ammonia to nitrate and solubilizes phosphates; Nitrobacter winogradskyi, which converts nitrite to nitrate and solubilizes phosphates; and Bacillus subtilis, which solubilizes phosphates and siderophore production.

Sobrinho says the additives increase nutrient availability in the soil.

“They help plants with vital hormones. They also make it easier for plants to go through drought periods and other adverse conditions, such as high salinity in the soil. There are many benefits.”

They are testing this product on forage crops to see if it improves soil and crop yields in a three-year study.

Sobrinho says they have control areas where they aren’t applying any of the product and that they are comparing to the treatment areas. Researchers are applying the treatment at four gallons an acre with a sprayer, twice a season. Then, they collect samples to calculate productivity, how much biomass is available and the nutritional value of the treatment group versus the control group.

“We collected soil samples in the first year of the project… and then we’re going to also look at the effect of using this product on overall soil health.”

Sobrinho says they will have results to share after this growing season when they compile all the data from the three years of the study.

He says there has been a lot of interest in this product from producers because it might reduce fertilizer use. Applying the soil biological additives is fairly cheap compared to fertilizer. Other potential benefits include increased productivity and drought resilience.

The post Olds College researchers trial new technologies to support grazing and soil health appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

However, we have generally had a lot of moisture and cooler temperatures this year. Pastures in general are looking good, but the excess of rain can also bring a variety of issues that farmers need to deal with. 

In June, many producers started to cut their forages to make hay, but excessive rain and unpredictable weather can make producing high-quality hay very difficult. Excessive moisture may have delayed the forage cutting. After cutting, a lot of hay may have been rained on before it was dry, and producers could bale it. In this month’s column, I want to discuss the effects of this on hay quality and what we can do to prevent further issues. 

As forages mature, plant yield increases but nutritional quality reduces. Usually, as plants mature the concentrations of protein and soluble carbohydrates decrease. Fibre and lignin increase, which promotes a decrease in digestibility and energy content, reducing the potential intake by cattle. Each forage species will have its own appropriate recommendation for when to cut to maximize yield without drastically reducing nutritional quality (usually around boot to heading stage for grasses and bud to bloom for alfalfa). 

However, the animal class/category we are producing the hay for may also interfere with when we decide to cut the forage. Animals with greater nutritional requirements will need better-quality hay, and we may decide to compromise on the yield. We should avoid cutting hay during rainy days as it will promote large dry matter and quality losses. These losses will depend on the for- age type (grass versus legume), amount and duration of rainfall event, and timing when the rain occurred relative to when the forage was cut (just after cutting or after it had started to dry out). 

We should only cut the forage when soil surface moisture is below 45 per cent. But when plants start to reach that appropriate cutting maturity, the changes in nutritional quality can be quite drastic from one week to the next. Because of that, it can create stress for producers if there is not a large enough window of sunlight in the forecast to be able to cut, dry and bale the hay before it rains again. Consequently, excessive precipitation often delays cutting, which means that forages may be overly mature when they are eventually cut. 

After cutting a hay crop, the forage must be dried and baled quickly to preserve forage quality. If the forage gets rained on after cutting, dry matter losses will occur through the leaching of soluble carbohydrates, proteins, minerals and vitamins, increased plant respiration, leaf shattering, and increased or prolonged microbial activity. The dry matter losses alone can be over 40 per cent in these situations. 

• RELATED: Interpreting a silage feed test

However, the economic losses are much greater when we consider the reduction in nutritional quality. The most nutritious portion of the plant (soluble carbohydrates and protein) is lost and what is left may also have reduced availability to the animal depending on how much heating occurred. Reduction of hay digestibility can vary from six to 40 per cent, depending on the extent of the damage. Mould growth will cause excessive heating if the hay is baled too wet (usually above 20 per cent moisture). Excessive heating will promote protein and carbohydrate binding in the plant, making them unavailable to the animal, consequently reducing the energy content and protein availability of the for- age. This is also known as the browning reaction due to the colour change it promotes (dark brown colour). Excessive heating may also promote spontaneous combustion of hay bales, causing huge disasters. In addition to heat production, mould growth can produce harmful mycotoxins. That means that bailing the forage with higher moisture content is not an option unless you can wrap it with plastic and make haylage (baleage). 

Rainfall when making hay can cause major forage yield and quality losses; however, sometimes it is unavoidable. In these situations, forage analysis becomes extremely critical. With the forage analysis in hand, we can adjust our cattle diets to prevent animal performance losses. 

So, what can we see in the forage analysis? Usually, we will see similar or higher crude protein levels (even though a large portion may be unavailable), greater neutral and acid detergent fibre levels (NDF and ADF), lower soluble carbohydrates (sugars) and consequently lower total digestible nutrients (TDN) or energy content. 

One analysis that is important to do is called acid detergent fibre insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) or acid detergent fibre insoluble crude protein (ADICP). It will give us an estimate of the heat damage and quality loss of the forage. Usually, values of ADIN or ADICP above 10 per cent indicate that some heating happened. During excessive heating, these values can exceed 30 per cent. The lab or the nutritionist can then adjust the normal crude protein levels to determine the amount of available protein to the animal. This means that you may need to supplement some extra protein, or you may decide to use this lower-quality hay to feed animals with lower nutrient requirements. With the numbers in hand, we can make a plan and ensure the farm goals are met.

The post Making hay when the sun isn’t shining appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

He spent much of his time as a kid with cattle in sales barns with his brother and his father, who worked as an order buyer but was originally from Elkhorn, Man. He was comfortable around cattle at a young age and learned the ins and outs of the industry from his father. 

That’s why, during university, Canart found himself leaving the mild weather and gently rolling hills of Kamloops for the cold, flat prairies of Virden, Man., with his brother.

“Some land came up for sale here with family ties,” Canart says.

While they were still in university, Canart and his brother would travel back and forth to Manitoba to sow grass, put in water lines and fences, and ensure the operation was ready. Then, after graduating, Canart moved to Manitoba permanently. 

“In 2002 I graduated university with a natural resource management degree and came out here and had grandiose ideas of setting up an agroforestry silvopasture operation,” Canart says with a laugh. “And so we’ve been operating it for about 24 years now.”

Yearling operation

All of the animals on Canart’s operation are yearlings. He purchases them in the spring and sells them in the fall. Often, Canart only has cattle on his land for 110 days of the year.

“That’s kind of the business model that Dad had been in up in Kamloops,” he says. “And actually both my brother and I had visions of just setting up an operation and not staying here. So, it wasn’t ever kind of like a traditional cow-calf operation. I had never been exposed to that. Dad hadn’t really, either.”

There are positives to running a yearling operation, Canart says. One for him is being done in 110 days and not having to deal as much with winter conditions, whereas cow-calf producers must deal with the environment year-round and brave Canadian winters.

There are also negatives, however. Canart is “at the mercy” of the yearling market, and he’s not on the other side of selling or buying.

He says there are effects on the environment, as well. Running between 900 to 1,000 yearlings every summer can be hard on the land.

“I lose out on the opportunity to get all the benefits of swath and bale grazing. I don’t get the chance to improve the soil in that respect.”

Despite this, Canart is doing what he can to improve his soil.

Rotational grazing

While presenting at the University of Manitoba’s Sustainability of Canadian Agriculture Conference, Canart emphasizes his passion for rotational grazing.

“I really want to use the cow as a tool to increase my ecological resiliency and buffer against the extreme weather,” he says during his presentation.

Canart’s pastures are broken up into small paddocks, and he aims to move his cattle daily, timed around the high point of the sun.

“That’s when the sugars in the plants are the highest. And so, you’re trying to mimic the bison’s activity but also harvest the highest-quality forage and put weight on cattle as best you can.”

Because his herd is so large, Canart usually divides the yearlings into three or four groups.

He has extensive piping on his land to bring water to all his different paddocks. Each paddock contains water bowls. This is another reason why Canart splits his herd up into groups — too many cattle in a paddock strain the watering system. 

“The major constraint there is standing water supply,” Canart says in an interview. “A 1,000-gallon trough doesn’t really last long when 400 head walk up to it.”

When he’s tried to run bigger groups, he had headaches such as wrecked troughs and cattle standing around, bawling.

When Canart first started rotational grazing, he rested his paddocks for around 30 days. Now he rests them for 50 to 60 days and sees a benefit from the increased amount of time. He also doesn’t allow his cattle to graze the grass all the way down and instead leaves a lot to increase soil organic matter.

“Both of my grandfathers would lose their minds if they saw how much grass that we leave on the landscape nowadays. I grew up in Kamloops outside the influence of the agricultural system in Manitoba. So, I came into it as kind of a disruptive force. I hadn’t come up under my father, my grandfather in that respect. So, I learned about grazing from a textbook, and that’s kind of maybe been a good thing.”

He says he has seen benefits to his land from rotational grazing, such as increasing the soil’s ability to withstand drought.

“I think it’s becoming more and more well established that proper rotational grazing can reduce emissions, or (add) more carbon on the landscape than other forms of grazing.”

Day job

Rotational grazing isn’t the only thing helping Canart improve the land on his operation. His day job as the conservation district manager at Upper Assiniboine River Conservation District has allowed him to learn a lot about soil health and ecology, as well.

“I’ve been able to go to conference after conference because I am trying to pick up ideas for work. But I can also implement concepts at home.”

In his role with the conservation district, Canart promotes a healthy and sustainable landscape. This allows him to think about sustainability and water on his operation, as well as to speak to other farmers and ranchers in his area about issues that concern them.

At the conference, while presenting on the different programs offered through the conservation district, Canart spoke about the intersection of his job with the work he does on his ranch. One program through the conservation district currently supports rotational grazing infrastructure, something close to Canart’s heart.

“The goal of this program, again, is to reduce emissions and increase carbon storage. And I believe that this high-performance grazing does both. But again, I’m a little biased. I’m a cattle guy.”

With a full-time job and an operation that is very active from the spring to the fall, Canart says it isn’t always easy to manage everything he does.

“My hair’s on fire until August,” he says with a laugh.

However, the chaos of that time is something he wouldn’t change for anything. And, as a rancher, Canart emphasizes his passion for keeping as much of the land in grassland as possible.

“I think people need to realize that those cattle are protecting the native areas.”

The post Manitoba beef producer focuses on rotational grazing on yearling operation appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

Marketers call that phenomenon “choice paralysis.” It can cause enormous problems for producers wanting to reseed tame perennial pastures and hayfields.

Forage production typically declines as tame pastures get older, especially if moisture, fertility, or grazing management are limiting. Over time, legumes die out and less desirable species such as bluegrass, dandelions and thistles increase. Eventually, it no longer resembles the “alfalfa-grass” mix that was originally seeded. But re-seeding forages is costly and can be risky and it’s not always easy to know what forages or varieties to seed next. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency no longer requires experimental yield, quality or agronomic data before new forage varieties are registered. Often, the only information available is data from the breeder or seed company, based on a limited number of sites and comparing to a historical “control” variety that may not be the industry standard.

How are you supposed to know what to seed? You might be tempted to buy an off-the-shelf forage seed mix, hoping that some of the seed in the blend will germinate, establish and grow where you need it to. But off-the-shelf mixes weren’t designed to meet your precise needs — they were designed with the “average” operation in mind, to meet a price point. If that retail one-size-fits-all doesn’t fit the demands of your situation, then germination, emergence and establishment may suffer and leave you back at square one and dollars behind.

Sorting out what forage species and blends might work for your situation is difficult. It’ll depend on soil zone, ecoregion, soil texture, soil pH and salinity conditions. It’ll depend on what you want to use it for (e.g. hay, pasture, or both). Head-to-head comparisons of different forage varieties can be hard to find and they’re often very site-specific. Recommended seeding rates will vary because different forage species often have different seed sizes. Seeding rates will also vary depending on whether you’re seeding into an existing stand (and how – e.g. frost seeding versus sod seeding) or whether you’re starting a whole new stand on bare soil. What weeds are you dealing with and what’s the best strategy to deal with them in a mixed stand?

The answers to all these questions (and more) are available. But if you need to find each answer, figure out which answers are credible and relevant to your soil type, landscape and climate and piece them all together by yourself. That’s a LOT of work! It might be easier to just leave that old pasture or hay stand alone and complain about the yields.

The good news is that solutions to this challenge exist. Tools like the “Saskatchewan Dryland Forage Species Selection Tool” (early 2000s) and the “Peace Forage Tool” (2014) were developed to help producers make an informed choice about which perennial forage species were suitable for their specific combination of soil type, salinity conditions, and production and management systems in Saskatchewan and B.C. These tools were well-received but didn’t help producers elsewhere in Western Canada.

In 2018, the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) funded a project, led by the Saskatchewan Forage Council, to combine the existing Saskatchewan and B.C. tools. The idea was to expand them to include additional forage varieties suited to more regions and apply to soil and climate conditions across Western Canada, offering it as an online tool. The “Forage U-Pick” tool was launched in 2020. It was also well-received. But it didn’t cover the needs of producers in Central and Atlantic Canada.

So, in 2020, the BCRC funded an Ontario Forage Council project to expand the Forage U-Pick tool and make it nationally relevant. This was no small feat, given that Central and Atlantic Canada don’t have official soil zones, face different soil challenges (e.g. acidic soils instead of Western Canada’s alkaline or saline soils), different climatic conditions (e.g. high moisture and waterlogging are more common and drought is less common) and different forage varieties (e.g. Timothy, birdsfoot trefoil and orchardgrass, etc.). It was completed in 2023 and is available at upick.beefresearch.ca. It’s also available en français.

What does this mean to you? Your checkoff funds a lot of forage breeding work across Canada. The Forage U-Pick tool can help you assess whether these new varieties can fit your situation.

Bottom line: Deciding whether or how to reseed a pasture or hay stand can be confusing, costly and risky. The Forage U-Pick tool can help you make better, less risky choices, more easily.

The Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) is a not-for-profit industry organization funded by the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off. The BCRC partners with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, provincial beef industry groups and governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle and genetics. Learn more about the BCRC at beefresearch.ca.

The post Choosing forage varieties without getting lost in the weeds appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.