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Continue to “Stage” Pasture into Fall                                                   The Midwest Cattleman · October 21, 2021 · P9



                           By Victor Shelton, NRCS State Agronomist/Grazing Specialist
         My wife has been splitting  Staging now has more to do               What      should
      open persimmon seeds. For  with allocating out grazable               you  be  grazing
      those who don’t know what  forage/fodder that is present,  right now? If you
      this is supposed to mean – it  allowing as much time as pos- still need to stock-
      is an old wives’ tale method of  sible for plants to continue to  pile forage or rest
      predicting the upcoming win- grow to get maximum yield to  pasture,  then  an-
      ter weather. For clarity, I’m  graze later, and knowing when  nuals or crop res-
      not saying my wife is old, but  to graze what in order to max- idue can certainly
      she does like to read persim- imize all of it and graze longer  work.  Corn  stock
      mon seeds! Traditionally, you  while meeting livestock nutri-
      split the persimmon seed open  tional needs.                           continued on page 11
      to reveal the whitish sprout
      inside. It may require a bit of
      imagination, but they are sup-
      posed to resemble a spoon, a
      fork or a knife. The spoon is              Missouri Hereford Association
      said to predict lots of  heavy,
      wet snow.  A fork means you
      should expect a mild winter.
      A knife indicates an icy, windy                                    Opportunity Sale
      and  bitter  cold  winter.  Sur-
      prisingly or luckily, it is often
      correct. She split open sever-
      al seeds this year – all were             Sunday, December 5, 2021 • Sedalia, MO • Noon
      spoons.
         Now, I would not bank on
      that information, but it is a                                  Offering 70 Lots
      reminder that we need to be                Bred Heifers • Show Heifers • Fall Pairs • Open Yearling Heifers • Spring Pair Splits • Herd Bulls
      prepared  ahead  of  time  for
      whatever the weather decides
      to throw at us.                         Breed Leading Sires Represented plus many others
         Each year is a little differ-                Churchill Red Bull 200Z • Churchill Kickstart 501C • Chez Dante 652D • R Excitement 4356
      ent, so strategy and planning                    NJW 79Z Z311 Endure 173D ET • /S Mandate 66589 ET • R Leader 6954 • TH Frontier 174E
      must be adjusted as needed                         HUTH FTF Torque C002 • MSU TCF Revolution 4R • C&L RR KJ 364C Jalapeno 973E
      as the season progresses. It is
      also important to have a game
      plan on how to deal with un-                         Fall Opens                              Spring Breds
      planned circumstances.
         I like to try and think ahead
      of the next livestock move –
      often calling it staging. Early
      in the season, the term stag-
      ing  is  easier  to  understand.
      It is the planned and predict-
      ed, yet adjustable, allocations
      for  a set time frame.  During
      spring growth, you want to
      keep forage as vegetative as
      possible to provide quality
      feed for grazing animals and
      to maintain that solar panel in
      order to increase forage yield
      as much as possible with ade-
      quate rest. A lot of that is tim-
      ing of when to go back to the
      first  paddock  and  start  over.
      It requires a watchful eye to
      know when to do that too.
         By late summer, and into
      early  fall,  the  growing  days
      for forages start getting num-                     Hosted by: Missouri Hereford Association • For more information, please contact
      bered. The impact of this is in-           Matt Reynolds -- Secretary/Treasurer -- Huntsville, MO -- 660.676.3788 -- reynoldscattle@cvalley.net
      tensified around Sept. 22 when
      fall equinox kicks in – daylight
      is now less than 12 hours per                          www.moherefords.org
      day. This slight change in day-
      light does slow forage growth.
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