[On Pasture 19 March 2013 By Kathy Voth] -- Forage quantity, quality and cost limit how much livestock a producer can raise, and how much money he/she makes doing it. Our emphasis on pasture grasses has led to decades of research to improve grass varieties, and farmers and ranchers have sprayed, burned, mowed, seeded, and invested in the necessary equipment for all this in an effort to increase the quantity and quality of pastures. There is an alternative. By understanding a little more about what’s growing in our pastures, and how animals choose what to eat, we could reduce expenses and increase the numbers of cattle we can produce. By turning weeds into forage, producers could potentially raise more cattle, and spend less money doing it .... Economist John Morley found that, based on average pasture weed populations, if a producer’s cattle ate just 70% of the weeds available, that producer would have about 43% more forage. This is just an average and your percentage will be different based on your past weed management practices .... Weeds are also high quality forage, maintaining much higher levels of protein through the growing season than typical pasture grasses. Because they have a higher leaf to stem ratio than grasses, they generally have better digestibility numbers as well. A maintenance ration for cattle requires 8% protein, so when grasses dry in mid-summer and drop below 8%, weeds can provide the protein cattle need to maintain, or even to gain weight. Higher levels of protein in weeds can also provide the nutrients rumen microbes need to process lower quality forages, so we can take advantage of forage that might not otherwise have been useful. ${imageDescription} Comment
