Improving Forage Production and Quality with Native Legumes in Grazed Warm-Season Grass Stands

Improving Forage Production and Quality with Native Legumes in Grazed Warm-Season Grass Stands

Summary

In 2010, we completed our primary research activities, and we continued to hold field days to share preliminary results with farmers, grazing specialists, and ecologists.

In June, we shared preliminary results with several groups. We participated in a grazing field day at the University of Wisconsin’s Arlington Research Station, where our project is located. Approximately 20 graziers from south central Wisconsin attended. We also led one-on-one and small group field trips with the NRCS State Grazing Lands Specialist, the Wisconsin Dept. of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection’s Grazing and Organic Agriculture Specialist, and a prairie expert from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Cattle selectivity appeared to be similar to what we observed in 2009: Holstein heifers that had been acclimated to management intensive rotational grazing on cool season pastures selected primarily warm season and cool season grasses and both native and nonnative legumes; native broadleaf plants were rarely selected.

While we did not quantify animal weight gains or body condition, the herd manager (collaborator Janet Hedckte) reported that she was satisfied that the animals remained in good condition during their 10- and 7-day-long periods of grazing prairie paddocks in June and July.

Objectives/Performance Targets

To evaluate native legume establishment and forage production and quality across a diversity gradient, we continued to manage our experiment using prescribed fire, grazing, and mowing. We conducted sampling throughout the 2010 growing season to accurately estimate the following parameters:

We implemented the first controlled experiment using rotational grazing in diverse prairie in Wisconsin, which included:

• sampling plant community composition and soil inorganic nitrogen to further the scientific understanding of the effects of grazing on tallgrass prairie in the Upper Midwest;
  documenting cattle forage preferences and sampling forage availability and quality (building a database for analyses that will provide new and fundamental information to livestock producers in Wisconsin who are not familiar with utilizing tallgrass prairie); and
  field days while cattle were grazing on the prairies provided farmers, grazing specialists and ecologists the opportunity to observe cattle behavior and selectivity in prairies for themselves.

Accomplishments/Milestones

• We developed new methods for estimating forage availability that are sensitive to cattle selection preferences in diverse tallgrass prairie;
  continued monitoring of legume interseeding, and;
  we collected data that will be essential for publishing manuscripts in separate peer-reviewed journals relevant to the restoration ecology community and forage production specialists.

• We engaged 4 undergraduate research assistants in rotational grazing research while training and employing them in sampling plant community composition and ANPP;
  we used photography to document cattle selection preferences in rotationally-grazed diverse prairie;
  we engaged young professional restoration ecologists when staff and interns from the Aldo Leopold Foundation assisted with plant community composition sampling in August 2010;
  approximately 20 graziers and grazing specialists attended a grazing field day in June 2010;
  we engaged the prairie restoration community through field trips in June 2010; and
  we presented research goals and preliminary results to approximately 30 undergraduate and graduate students in a presentation for the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

In southern Wisconsin, native grasslands were virtually eliminated from farmland by the 1930s. Very few farmers have knowledge of native warm season grasses, native legumes, or the prairie plant community, and there is a lack of traditional or scientifically-based knowledge relevant to their management for agricultural production. Through our initial outreach efforts, we have begun to reintroduce farmers to the potential uses of native grasses in their livestock production systems, and our small group tours with ecologists have allowed them to observe that management intensive rotational grazing shows potential for managing native grasslands for biodiversity conservation as well as livestock production. With our exploratory research, we are developing knowledge and experience that will be useful to farmers, grazing specialists, and ecologists in southern Wisconsin and adjacent states.

Collaborators: