Graziers Make Suggestions on How UW Researchers Can Better Meet Their Needs Agri-View: Feature Stories

Members of Wisconsin's managed-grazing community heard what University of Wisconsin researchers have learned so far about feeding livestock on pasture.

In turn, graziers, grazing consultants and others told UW researchers and UW-Madison's new ag dean what they'd like from the UW in the future.

The special give-and-take session was part of UW-Madison's recent Agronomy/Soils Field Day at the Arlington Ag Research Station. The UW's first students in its new agroecology curriculum were also on hand.

Randy Jackson in UW-Madison's agronomy department offered a summarized version of UW peer-reviewed research over the years on grazing. Here's what UW research has discovered about managed grazing:

It promotes pasture productivity

Winter defoliation has little effect on the subsequent year's production

Nitrogen bolsters spring flush when moisture is available

Tall fescue and orchardgrass have the most consistent growth through the season, but quackgrass, timothy and smooth brome produce more with no nitrogen

"Summer slump" hasn't been observed in experiments

Mike Casler has developed three new pasture varieties: "Spring Green" festulolium with improved freezing tolerance; "Hidden valley" meadow fescue with drought and freezing tolerance; and an unnamed reed canarygrass with better capacity to establish

Optimal seeding rates for frost-seeded grasses have been identified

Grass varieties have been evaluated on-farm under managed grazing and the results have been distributed to thousands of graziers

Smooth brome responds to grazing by increasing production but decreasing height

Kura clover or birdsfoot trefoil, mixed with cool-season grasses, replaced the need for N fertilizer

Supplementing grazing Holstein steers with dried distillers grains (DDGs) increases performance 25 to 40 percent

Special breeding for grazing isn't necessary; progeny of AI sires selected under confinement produce well under grazing

Managed grazing is compatible with riparian plant diversity, composition, fish habitat and bird populations

Perhaps most significant, in terms of the bottom line, average net farm income per hundredweight equivalent is much higher on grazing farms than traditional confinement dairies and large expanded confinement operations (this is from a long-term economic analysis by Tom Kriegl and Gary Frank).

A selected panel from the grazing community addressed what they see "missing" in terms of UW research and outreach support for managed grazing.

Rhonda Gildersleeve, a Boscobel grazier and Iowa County ag agent, instead took fellow graziers to task about an "attitude" that the UW, as an institution, doesn't really know much about grazing and isn't necessarily a good resource for graziers. She says she gets "frustrated" with that, and told producers that just like with their spouses, the UW "can't read your mind." "You have to talk to them," she stated.

She's also heard the excuse that given UW-Extension agents aren't "into grazing." Even if they're not, graziers can still ask them their questions; it's their job to find the answers.

On the other hand, producers need to see UW researchers out in the country more." We need you to show up at pasture walks at times other than when you've been asked to speak," she stated, suggesting that farmers are "colleagues" of researchers, who can learn something from producers' practical experience.

Karen Breneman is a Rio grazier, who made the switch from conventional dairying in the early 1990s. She called for a dedicated grazing research herd or a grazing research farm in Wisconsin. Other states, she noted, have these. Research also needs to be carried out using actual methods graziers use, she noted. She said that one of the biggest competitive advantages is permanent pastures; many graziers never want to dig up their sods. UW research might take that approach, too, she suggested.

Breneman also thinks every UW grazing project should have an "economic element," and projects should have grazier advisors in place before projects are established in order to get input and better meet the needs of farmers.

Mary Anderson, a Trempealeau County dairy and beef grazier and grazing specialist with the River Country RC&D, spoke as a representative of the Coulee grazing group of 120 producers in west central Wisconsin. The group is concerned about the new manure regulations rolling out in Wisconsin and how grazing operations are treated by those. She said it's known how long it takes liquid slurry manure to hit tile lines via worm holes, but similar isn't known for a grazing animal's cow-pie on pasture.

Other needs perceived by this network are: What are grazing cows removing in terms of nutrients; how can producers get more effective fiber into their animals (maybe with "grazing corn"); more work needs to be done on carbon sequestration and pasture; what are the benefits of certain weeds in a sward (like dandelions, for instance).

Paul Nehring, director of Grassworks in Wausau and a grazier himself, thinks the UW and the entire Wisconsin grazing community need to set their sights higher in order to better compete globally. Graziers and other dairy producers here in the United States are really buffered from the world price, he noted.

He called for researchers to get out to producer farms more and local pasture walks, while conceding that there's presently no way for producers to hold researchers accountable for doing that. The answer, according to Nehring, is for farmers to take on the responsibility of funding grazing research themselves, perhaps with a checkoff.

"What industry doesn't fund its own research and development?" he questioned, noting that coming up with money for studies would allow producers to have more direct input into what kind of research is pursued.

Dan Truttman, New Glarus among the first grass-based dairy producers in the state, told UW researchers that graziers need more information on how to maintain mixed grass/legume swards so that legumes produce nitrogen for the grasses. This is crucial with the increasing cost of N and the energy needed to apply it to pastures as well. Graziers need more information on how to maintain swards that feed themselves.

He was critical of commonly heard UW recommendations focused on N applications for grasses. At very least, they need more on the economics so that they can easily see ahead of time what kind of return on investment to expect from applying N.

More information is also needed about other nutrients, besides N, for pastures, he indicated.

The UW must also keep graziers better informed about cutting-edge issues like managing pastures for global warming, compaction by livestock and lower moisture baleage. He also wants to see more "computer tools" specifically for graziers.

There was then a "town meeting," opened up to whoever wanted to address this issue of UW grazing research. Miscellaneous concerns raised during the open discussion included:

How travel time from the Madison campus to grazing farms and pasture walks in northern Wisconsin is an impediment to greater researcher participation

How farmers work with systems and researchers like to work with carefully controlled plots

How more research personnel need to be located at outlying experiment stations to bring them closer to farmers, rather than being concentrated in Madison

How more "models" need to be developed so that research on one soil can be adapted to other soils

How there needs to be follow-up on points raised at grazier/researcher sessions like this one; a graziers research committee might be established to meet several times a year with UW experts

More information needs to be dispersed to overcome barriers to managed grazing, like drop in production and how to cover existing debt load.

How pasture must be recognized as a "crop" no different from corn or soybeans, and that it's feasible to rely on pasture on high-quality land (contrary to the general impression that grazing is okay for low-quality land but can't compete on good corn and soybean-growing ground).

The town meeting was amiable, and concluded with folks feeling they were able to have their say. Researchers listened attentively and seemed to be genuinely concerned about trying to help this system of farming succeed in Wisconsin.

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