Veira, D. M., Lysyk, T. J., Thompson, D. J., Garland, G. J. and Majak, W. 2010. Effect of grazing mixtures of alfalfa and orchardgrass grown in strips on the incidence of bloat in cattle. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 90: 109 112. Steers were grazed on pastures with alfalfa and orchardgrass grown in monoculture strips with alfalfa covering 100, 75 or 50% of the ground area. The forages were maintained at ...

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) infected with the endophyte Neotyphodium coenophialum ([Morgan-Jones and Gams] Glenn, Bacon, and Hanlin) causes fescue toxicosis in cattle grazing the forage, but effects of the endophyte were considered to be abated soon after removal of the animals from pastures. Tasco-Forage, a proprietary extract from the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum, is a know...

Clovers and other legumes are highly desirable species in pastures and hay meadows. First, legumes are able to obtain nitrogen from air through their symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria and, there­ fore, are not dependent on nitrogen fertilizer. The fixed nitrogen is primarily used to support clover growth, but parts of it become avail­ able to neighboring grass plants when clover ti...

Cattle (Bos taurus) grazing on unimproved pastures can be a significant, yet often overlooked, source of pollutants to surface waters, especially when the cattle have unlimited access to streams in the pastures. Livestock exclusion from streams has been demonstrated to reduce sediment and possibly nutrient yield from streams draining pastures. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effec...

Sward composition and structure influence herbage intake of grazing animals. We conducted a grazing study to examine how forage mixture complexity affected sward structure. Replicated 1-ha pastures (Hagerstown silt loam soil: fine, mixed, semiactive, mesic, Typic Hapludalf) were planted to either orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) and white clover (Trifolium repens L.) or a nine-species mixtu...

The tall-grass prairies, wetlands and forests that dominated the Iowa landscape have been replaced by annual row-crops and grass pastures that occupy more than 90 % of the landscape today. Because of these changes water reaches the streams and gullies much faster and has led to incised streams and an extensive growth of gully networks. Stream and gully banks are major contributors of the nonpoi...

In recent years, prices for N fertilizer have increased dramatically, reducing net returns of fertilized pasture systems. A 5-yr study from 2005 to 2009 was conducted to evaluate management strategies and relative differences in profitability for 3 methods of backgrounding calves on smooth bromegrass pastures. Forty-five steers were used each year for a total of 225 animals in a randomized comp...

Restoration of grasslands dominated by tall fescue (Schedonorus phoenix [Scop.] Holub) to native tallgrass prairie usually requires burning, herbicides, or reseeding. We tested seasonal grazing by livestock in winter, combined with cessation of fertilization, as a restoration tool for modifying the competitive dynamics among herbaceous plants to restore tallgrass prairie communities in southeas...