I’ve heard it said many times that variety is the spice of life, and here's an example why it's true.

My flip phone rang this spring while I was pulling string and moving cattle. I called back in a few minutes and had an interesting visit. My client on the other end had taken in several hundred yearling heifers on a gain basis. They were averaging 540 pounds after a 2% shrink. They were delivered in April after being hard wintered following an August purchase.

The first five weeks weight gain of a test group indicated better than 2 pounds per head per day. We’re shooting for 1.7 pounds per day average as of load out in July and August.

Eastern gamagrass instigated the call. Up here on the Cumberland Highland Rim of Tennessee it does not grow, but down 30 miles west in the limestone Nashville basin it is common on the roadsides. My client has 40 acres that is knockdown gorgeous. It is thick and pure. On May 10th it was knee high and hard to walk through.

The trouble was that 50% of the heifers were not interested in this ice cream plant. They were walking around following my client. In a couple of minutes they went to the edge and started grazing anything and everything except gamagrass. What’s going on? The same thing happened last year in early June. We need gains. We’ve got a huge amount of biomass. And the cattle are going to melt. Our job is to keep them full and push gains. It ain’t happening. Remember that the key to prognosis and successful treatment is diagnosis.

Diagnosis needs to be accurate and in this case needs to be rapid. The cattle are hard and healthy so that should not be a major factor. Their grazing attitude flip flopped when they hit the gamagrass.

We started putting together a history and facts:

Remember that I lack experience with gamagrass. My first thought I made was to think about systems. Then I made calls to producers with more gamagrass experience. I learned more of what I already knew. High-energy plants that are high in the order of succession and biomass have crowns several inches above the ground that support the plants’ life and longevity. Remember that plants work to live and reproduce and process protective mechanisms. The gamma grass in question is no longer soft. It is starting to get high in lignin and probably adding more tannins. It is a high-energy plant but not a simple-sugar plant. Warm season (C4) plants are very health and production capable but they are not sweet as to simple sugar content. Much of their energy is stored as starches. These heifers had no experience with the plant.

We need to not forget that grazing high-tonnage plants and crown removal or severe damage results in thinning of the stand. This happens when the plant is very immature and highly palatable and very vulnerable. This might be acceptable every few years but not on a regular basis.

Severely grazing of plants that are not palatable is promised to lower cattle gains. Do not forget that good gains are necessary in a stocker operation to consistently yield black ink.

Let’s cut to the chase and do some things:

Cattle health and herd health requires us to be close to the top of our game most days. This fact might be a little stressful but should not be deadly. Monocultures will cause stress but they should lead us to understanding the natural model principle of plant diversity yielding stability.

I did not invent the model but I promise that bare ground is enemy No. 1 and monocultures may likely be enemy No. 2. The natural model demands that we observe the principles in order to remain healthy and profitable.