As the year transitions from winter to spring, producers are ready to stop feeding hay, and the livestock are eyeballing the “weakest link” in the fences to get to the green grass.

Resiliency can be interpreted as the ability to withstand or recover from disturbances in grazing systems. This can include resilience to natural disasters, but it also includes the ability of perennial forages to recover from grazing.

Leaving sufficient residual plant material (leaves, lower stem bases and crowns) is essential to maximize next year’s production for perennial grasses.

Sustainable and regenerative principles in cattle ranching are not new, but ranchers may not know how to revolutionize ranching with these practices and make cattle operations more resilient for whatever comes next.

Soil aggregate stability is critical to the soil’s ability to infiltrate and hold water.

As temperatures start to rise and grass begins to green up and grow, considering the availability of forage in each pasture can help livestock producers make management decisions at turnout.

Have you ever considered adding a forage calculator to your toolbox? Integrating this method of measuring forage carrying capacity and stocking rate can help with the improvement of production management practices on pastures and rangelands.

Progressive Cattle Editor Tyrell Marchant visits with Ken Odde from Kansas State University about his work on the newly formed Genetic Merit Pricing Task Force and how he thinks genetic data will impact how cattle are bought, sold and raised in the future. Then, Tyrell sits down with Justin Derner from USDA-ARS at the Range Beef Cow Symposium to discuss what producers can do to make sure their pasture is doing everything it can for their cattle, and vice versa.

Overgrazing pastures and rangeland has detrimental consequences on cattle, forage, soil and producers’ bottom lines.