CRP / Buffers and cattle...question please

H

HighBrass68

Banned
Hello,

New member from Central KY:

My family farms 1500 acres...we have roughly 500 head of beef cattle.

We are considering habitat work on several tracts and my question is:

1. Can you begin a habitat program like CP33 with cattle on the same tract?
2. Will the cattle destroy the grasses we would be trying to establish?
3. Can you achive a better yield from a mix of warm season grass vs. fescue?

If anyone has expierence w/ this please chime in...

Thanks in advance...
 
Cp-33 buffers

I have access to some ground with CRP buffers, river bottom, I talked a farmer client of mine into, miles of them, in an area with nothing else except cut crop fields, I mean bare, flat, not even a telephone pole. These things are prairie grass, mostly big bluestem, this year with all the moisture a little weedy, ( good), about 30-60 foot wide, linear. Secondary pheasant range, would traditionally be better for quail, but no serious shrubbery for them, ( my next effort), all this area around here got absolutely hammered this last winter, snow on for a month, 20" over normal. Anybody hunt anything like this before?, good or bad year?
 
Highbrass, if you currently have a high proportion of fescue, the addition of native warm-season grass would provide better nutrition for your stock during the warm months of summer when the fescue is more dormant and coarse. The problem with fescue is it's low nutrition and the high level of inputs needed to maintain the stand. Further, the primary growing season for fescue does not correlate with the primary growing season for cattle.
 
the addition of native warm-season grass would provide better nutrition for your stock during the warm months of summer when the fescue is more dormant and coarse. The problem with fescue is it's low nutrition and the high level of inputs needed to maintain the stand. Further, the primary growing season for fescue does not correlate with the primary growing season for cattle. I talked a farmer client of mine into, miles of them, in an area with nothing else except cut crop fields, I mean bare, flat, not even a telephone pole. These things are prairie grass, mostly big bluestem, this year with all the moisture a little weedy, ( good), about 30-60 foot wide, linear. Secondary pheasant range, would traditionally be better for quail, but no serious shrubbery for them, ( my next effort), all this area around here got absolutely hammered this last winter, snow on for a month, 20" over normal. Anybody hunt anything like this before?, good or bad year? My family farms 1500 acres...we have roughly 500 head of beef cattle.
 
I hunt almost exclusively in native grass and do hunt a lot of filter strips. I will tell you that you will get the most benefit out of filter strips wider than 60 feet. The narrow strips are very easy for predators to Easter egg hunt in and can actually reduce nesting success. Wider is better. Think also, if you are putting these near timber, the root competition from the trees will reduce the eventual maximum height of the grass close to the timber. Having the wider buffer will allow you to have that added height further from the trees to protect those birds better in snow cover. The addition of low woody cover would also improve this function and would probably be necessary for quail.
 
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