Becky Mills
Contributing Editor

If you see a current photo of a Southeastern pasture, don't be fooled by the hint of green. The second and third week of May, producers were blessed with anywhere from a few tenths of an inch to inches of precious rain, usually within a few hours. It did make the color look better, but in most cases, the grass is too short for even a bovine's agile lips.

"We're still way behind," said Robby Stephens, of Ashburn, Georgia. "It's going to take big rains over several months to catch up. We're still supplementing with protein and a little hay. We're usually through with that by the first of April. This has been such a long problem -- it's been going on since last fall. We never got our winter grazing up good; the ryegrass never really came on. Now our summer grasses are lagging behind, too."

He said it isn't just grass that's short. There are farms and ranches where the ponds used to water cows and irrigate crops are nothing but mudholes.

Stephens feels the drought on two levels. Besides his own pastures, he's the owner-manager of Turner County Stockyards. "Every week for the past two months, we've had somebody sell out because they just didn't have anything to feed their cattle. Hay is expensive. Fertilizer is expensive. The price of cattle is high, so they're selling out and cutting their losses. Some of them will get back in, but some of them will never own a cow again."

Stephens added, "People here try to sell their calves at 500 pounds, but now we're seeing a lot of 350-pounders come through. They're trying to relieve some of the stress on the cows and pasture."

EXTREME DROUGHT REACHES FROM GEORGIA TO VIRGINIA

With cattle on both sides of the North Carolina-Virginia line, Matt Poore said they had 0.85 inch of rain in April and 1.6 inches by the third week of May, but the area is still over 15 inches short for the year. His family-owned Triple Creek Ranch, a cow-calf to forage-finished operation, is now in the D3, or extreme drought, classification in North Carolina and Virginia.

Poore is one of those enviable grass managers who typically have forage when others don't. However, he said, "We've been feeding hay to our mature cows for about a week now. We cut our oats and ryegrass for hay and only got half a crop. Fortunately, we tested it, and it was really high quality." Thankfully, it was also nitrate-free, which he said has been a concern with small-grain hay in the area.

He plans to bale his fescue as soon as possible, but said, "Our hay fields are trying to head out, but there is very little leaf tissue. That means yields will be a lot less and lower in quality." He is also buying as much hay as he can.

The cattleman, who thinks through his pasture rotations well in advance, said his young cattle should have plenty of grass. He moved his cows through his mostly fescue paddocks fast and let them graze the seedheads and early growth. "Nothing was grazed short, and that will help." He's also counting on the warm-season annuals in the mix to help.

After one rain, he planted crabgrass, which is now germinating, and after another inch of rain, he'll be planting more crabgrass and sorghum-sudan.

Poore, like Stephens, sees the drought from a wide perspective. Along with his own cattle operation, he's the North Carolina State University Extension beef specialist.

"Farmers who left cattle grubbing down cool-season pastures will see long-term impacts. Those pastures will make little growth from now until fall. Recent rains will help, but you can't make up for that lost spring yield. Farmers who are overstocked will stay short of feed." For those who aren't overstocked, he said, "They should be OK when the grass starts to grow back."

HIGH CATTLE PRICES OFFER SILVER LINING DURING DROUGHT

With the combination of drought and record-high beef prices, Poore said now is a good time to cull cows. At Triple Creek, they will likely come out of the mature cow herd.

"We have some older cows and cows that are not as productive that will make the cull list." He'll make that list when he works his herd. "We won't sort them off until we wean the calves, but it will make it easier for us to make good decisions if we do it ahead of time instead of at the sort-gate."

He added, "Our yearlings are already promised for a beef program, and most of our calves are needed to keep that market next year, as well as provide replacement heifers."

"While economic signals say to expand cow numbers, the reality across the whole South is that we probably need to reduce cow numbers more before things turn around," he concluded.

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