W
HEN CONSISTENT MOISTURE FINALLY ARRIVED IN 2015, breaking a brutal 4-year drought, Texas and Oklahoma cattlemen took a moment to cel-
ebrate and give thanks. Then they went to work restock- ing their herds. However, they might not have given any thought to developing contingency plans for the next dry spell. Even “minor” droughts can cause management problems if a rancher is not prepared. Eric Bailey, Ph.D., Endowed Chair of Cow-Calf Man-
agement and Nutrition at West Texas A&M University, Canyon, believes it is possible to drought-proof an opera- tion without making wholesale changes. He recommends ranchers develop a drought management plan that uses critical trigger dates to make stocking rate decisions based on rainfall received during the growing season. He also likes to incorporate fl exible grazing units, such as stocker cattle, to vary stocking rate based on precipitation. Ranchers can make small changes that do not directly
affect the ability to generate revenue, yet allow a cow-calf operation to be more resilient to dry weather. Planning for the next drought uses several concepts,
one of which is accurately tracking and recording precipita- tion. The rancher can then compare current precipitation to historical rainfall patterns. Recorded rain and snow totals are available at several websites, including www.
usclimatedata.com,
www.weatherunderground.com and
www.noaa.gov, as well as local Extension offi ces. Most experts defi ne a drought as receiving less than
70 percent of the long-term historical precipitation aver- age. Bailey reports that researchers at West Texas A&M have analyzed rainfall in the Texas Panhandle and have reported their fi ndings in a new Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Bulletin, “Using Historical Rainfall Patterns to Plan for Drought in the High Plains.” They discovered a tremendous variation of precipitation
over 130 years. The average annual precipitation for the Panhandle region is 19 inches, but this happened in only a few years. Historically, there were many years when rainfall was 10 inches or less. In other years, exceptional
Ask 3 questions on Oct. 1: • Does enough grass remain to feed the herd through the winter?
• How much rainfall did I re- ceive between Oct. 1 of last year and Oct. 1 of this year?
• Am I in a period of below- average rainfall?
tscra.org
Most experts defi ne a
drought as receiving less than 70 percent of the long-term historical precipitation average.
rains measured 25 to 30 inches. “Just because we had a good year this year, doesn’t
mean we’re locked into a good year next year,” Bailey advises. “What happens this year in terms of weather has little to no value on what’s going to happen next year. I believe we can give ourselves some [idea] that either drought is coming or it has just arrived. We don’t wait for forages and grasses to be overgrazed, damaging our pastures. That’s when cows get thin and everyone starts selling at once. I think we can get out ahead of it in terms of how far — probably 60 days — which would make a huge difference.”
Add fl exibility to your preparations The second concept is adding stocker calves to a cow-
calf operation. This practice increases marketing options. Stocker cattle can be sold as needed. The rancher isn’t emotionally tied to stocker cattle because they don’t have the genetics he or she has worked to develop in the cow-calf herd. Based in the Southern High Plains region, Bailey has
developed a strategy that works in that area, although his drought forecasting system could certainly be adapted to other regions. He thinks of precipitation in terms of the growing season and not as a calendar year. For the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, this runs from Oct. 1 to the next Oct. 1. Three trigger dates enable producers to evaluate in-
formation they have collected, which then helps them determine if they are entering a drought, and what the stocking rate should be. These decisive dates are Oct. 1, April 1 and July 1.
Questions to ask on Oct. 1 Oct. 1 is typically the end of the growing season for
native rangeland in his region. He suggests a rancher ask these questions: • Does enough grass remain to feed the herd through the winter?
MORE February 2016 The Cattleman 91
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