Finally, we have been blessed with and received some much-needed rain and cooler temperatures. According to the forecast, we shouldn’t see any more temperatures above 80 this year. The forecast also looks like we could receive a few days of rain in the next two weeks.
Now is the time to assess pasture damage due to the severe drought and start making and implementing recovery plans. Even well-managed pastures in severe drought will show some signs of damage. One of the most common is an increase in weeds. Weeds seem to thrive in dry weather.
Another problem is the lack of root growth in pasture grasses that causes an obvious decline in overall forage yield. Grass stands on lighter soils will show a lot greater damage than those stands in heavier soils. Pastures that were overgrazed and have low fertility levels will show the greatest damage.
We must remember that some pasture grasses will be killed or thinned by severe drought. We need to determine which pastures will recover, which pastures may need to be overseeded and which pastures may need to be completely renovated. If your fields are showing an increase in weeds is also very important. This is why you need to do a good assessment of your fields to evaluate the actual forage damage from the drought.
Soil health
Severe drought not only affects our grass stands but it can deplete our soils of the nutrients our pastures need for growth. It is important to soil test all your pastures after a severe drought. Due to difference in grazing management during a drought, fields that have better water access seem to be grazed harder. So not all your pastures will show the same amount of drought damage. Therefore, your recovery plans will not be the same across your whole farm. Some of your pastures may recover just fine with time and some simple grazing management while others may need some fertilizer and reseeding.
Recovery
There are some options that need to be considered to help improve recovery of forages from drought. In your least damaged pastures let the surviving grasses regrow on their own without reseeding. Rethicken your thin pastures by reseeding them with the same species of grasses that are already growing in them. For those fields that have received the most amount of damage maybe add some legumes, winter annuals or even some forage brassicas to help improve those pastures.
Winter feeding
A lot of farms are going to be short on hay from the severe drought. You need to take a serious look at those low performing animals on your farm and make those culling decisions before the middle of winter. You also may need to consider baling up some corn stalks this year to help stretch your hay supply or even purchasing baled corn stalks as an alternative feed source. Once those grain crops are removed consider planting cover crops this fall so that they may be grazed in the spring as an alternative feed source that will give your pastures more time next year to recover.
The severe drought that we have experienced this summer can impact our pastures and hay fields for years to come. Unfortunately, it is going to take time to rebuild and recover our fields through reseeding, fertilize, weed control and grazing management for the next couple of years to get some of our hay fields and pastures back to the potential forage production that they had before the severe drought hit us.
Stress
Dealing with drought can be very stressful on farm families. If you have questions or need help evaluating the drought impact on your farm, please remember that these agencies will be there for you, just reach out to them: Ohio State University Extension Service, Ohio Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Agency and soil and water conservation districts.
