Saline County Round Up
August 2017
Up Coming Events
Fri., August 11- Sat., August 12: Arkansas Cattlemen Convention– at the Ft. Smith Convention Center
September 5-9: Saline County Fair
Wed., Sept. 6: SCF Cattle Judging - 6:00pm Sat., Sept. 9: SCF Premium Sale - 9:30am,starting with Pullets - plenty of good Hyline Brown egg layers will be auctioned.
Come out and support the youth projects - Anyone can add on any amount of money to their project!
Thurs., Sept. 14: Saline County Cattlemen Meeting - 6:30pm at the Saline County Fairgrounds
ROUND UP
Spring calves should have already been vaccinated, but for certain they need a Blackleg (Clostridial) Vaccination. It is cheap and could save a calf or multiple calves. It is easy for the Cattleman to say, “Why, we haven’t seen blackleg in years!” and neglect the shot. That is true that we don’t see Blackleg Deaths often, but if you do, it will make a believer out of you. Usually when we have a dry season and cattle are grazing close, they can pick up the Bacteria. A $2.00 shot can save $800 calf. I think one reason I don’t hear about many Blackleg Deaths is because, who wants to admit to anyone else that they took that risk and lost.
While you have those calves up, go ahead and give the Respiratory Complex Shot, and Booster.
We have been talking about adding value to your cattle. A Pre-VAC Program is a big plus, to buyers. It is all about taking the guesswork out of buying cattle, or the opportunity to get sick away from the calves. Every management tool you can use to enforce your reputation for selling cattle that can handle the stress without getting sick, will make you money. This will come more into effect as buyers track where cattle came from, and keep a book on their buyers.
HEY, it is time to mow off all that old stubble in your pastures that the cows are skipping over. If it is mowed off now and fertilized you will have fall grazing, when we are dry. You say, “How do you know it is going to be dry in the fall?” I can’t forecast the weather, but I can forecast that the forage producer needs to be prepared for a dry period.
You may think that you are prepared because you have extra hay put up. Well how much hay is enough? Is that hay you have as good a quality of forage as you can grow? Which is most efficient and least expensive: You cutting, raking, baling, storing, and feeding OR letting the cow graze the forage? I think sometimes we get into a hay making mood and don’t stop to think of ways to avoid having to put up hay.
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HERBICIDE DEMONSTRATION USING HERBICIDE IMPREGNATED ONTO FERTILIZER
After looking at the results of the Demonstration of Herbicide impregnated onto fertilizer, and talking to others who had similar demonstrations, the results are surprisingly good. They wer’nt necessarily any better than spraying the herbicide by itself, but just as good.
The product used on the fertilizer was GrazonNext .
One advantage we saw was that the residual effect of the herbicide, lasted long enough to control late weeds such as Goatweed, that most producers that spray early will have to spray again, or they will just let it go. Another advantage is not having to run the spray rig, which can free up a lot of time. The Grazon Next on Fertilizer also did a good job on Cypressweed (Dogfennel).
HERBICIDE DEMONSTRATION TO CONTROL CHEROKEE SEDGE
For those of you who have pastureland close to the river, you are familiar with the very thick clumps of sedge plants. The common name is Cherokee Sedge. They are not palatable to cattle and make any ground operation difficult.
We recently conducted a demonstration to see which product might have the most effect on this invasive plant. We used Roundup, at a 5% strength which is a very strong rate, and we used Outrider at the recommended rate of 1.33 OZ per acre. The Outrider appeared to have the greatest effect on the Sedge, but we will not know until next spring if it kills it.
ARMYWORMS EVERYWHERE
I have been asked about the worms becoming resistant to our Lambda-Cy products. I think other factors are probably the cause of less than desirable results. The Insecticide does kill on contact but it is impossible to get the spray on all the worms that are down in the thatch. One other factor is that we have multi-generations in a field, so worms are in all stages, and we know those large worms are much harder to kill. If the insecticide dries on the foliage you have a chance to also kill the worms that will crawl up and eat on the foliage later. It doesn’t take very much rain to wash the insecticide off the foliage. If we have 2 or 3 weeks of growth, that is a lot of foliage for the spray to saturate. The worms that are down in the canopy may not be exposed to enough insecticide to kill them. Be sure and read the label, because the Per Cent of active ingredients varies on different products, and therefore the rate per acre will change. It has not been shown that using more than the labeled rate is any more effective.
Ronald A. Matlock
County Extension Agent – Staff Chair