Air August 20, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. Wheat production meeting is coming up in two weeks on September 3rd! This growing season started off like maybe we were going to break out of this drought cycle, but then July hit with a vengeance and hear we sit in year 4 of this mess.

I've been visiting with a lot of cattle producers who are pulling cattle off or supplemental feeding or getting ready to do some serious culling of cows to reduce numbers. A lot of people have been asking me about all those weeds coming up out in the pasture. And a few are concerned enough that they want to start spraying for those weeds. In a nutshell, don't waste you time or money. A lot of those weeds are native annuals and perennials that are around every year, just maybe not in as high a number as we're seeing this year. Many of these plants are opportunistic. The spring started out with many unburned pastures and lots of bare ground. A lot of these species require sunlight for the seed to germinate. We had just enough early season moisture and open soil in pastures to get these plants started growing. And then once July hit and the grass stopped growing, these plants are left and have the ability, obviously, to survive on very little moisture. One that is becoming very obvious right now is annual broomweed. This is the yellow flowering stuff that's starting to become real obvious. And a lot of folks want to start spraying that rascal right now. DON'T. A) it's going to be very difficult to control at any time of year with herbicides and B) any plant that's under drought stress is going to be hard to control with herbicides. Mother Nature is just reacting to the drought and the grazing pressure. The most important thing you can do is to start reducing grazing pressure. If we get a little rain in what's left of summer, we will get some regrowth and this regrowth is going to be important to leave in place to help protect the soil. If you just eat everything off to the ground we will start to have more problems. And then next year we just have to further reduce stocking rates. Even if next summer gives us normal rainfall, the pastures are hurt bad enough that they won't be able to handle normal grazing pressure. We've been in this cycle for four years and we aren't going to fix the damage in just one year.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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