Pasture Conditions = Marketing Plan
A meteorologist in Lincoln, Neb., says we had the second driest May on record. You all know how it is in the dry season - it rains heavily. Someone might take a quick shower, but the neighbor two miles away gets nothing.
ecology
I remember the first time I heard the word desertification. Desertification is the process of turning fertile land into desert, usually as a result of drought, deforestation, or improper agriculture. I scrapped the idea but later received better training from business trainer Allan Crockett. Allan taught me about "ecology," which deals with the relationship of organisms to their physical environment.
The heightened awareness I received from Allan helped me see things I hadn't seen before and see things in new ways. And when you see something, you can never ignore it. It's blocked. From what he taught me, I could clearly see that desertification was occurring in southeastern Nebraska, where the average annual rainfall was 31 inches.
Our current situation only amplifies its impact. We're lucky it's raining here. As I checked the field conditions, one thing became clear: the wells that depended on the field's runoff had plenty of water, while the wells that flowed from the field had very little water. No matter how you look at it, one type of farming puts rain on the ground and the other.
biological capital
Which brings me to another term I haven't used in a long time: biological capital. I took this term from a book by Walt Davis. This is how I understand biological capital. It refers to growing conditions or the state of ecological processes on pastures. Does this process encourage grass growth or does it encourage weed growth?
What I really like about the term "biological capital" is that it sounds like money. I'll briefly touch on the inventory pyramid portion of my marketing course. The use of the word "modal" means that you need to deposit funds and not just withdraw them. This suggests that some manufacturers need a change in management.
inventory
I used to hear the phrase "not because they don't want it, but because you want it" and was annoyed. How do I do that? What does that actually mean? I explain it to people in a different way because I've found that what I'm going to write about has something to do with farming, marketing, ranching, and even other areas of life. That means: not doing different things, but in a certain way. Another concept is that like causes produce like effects. If you want to change the effect or the result obtained, you must change the cause. That is the law of the universe. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The law of cause and effect is the law of laws."
People don't start doing something unless they have a plan, and they usually want all the stars to match before they start something. When I began in earnest to improve my pastoral skills, I invested in books and attended pastoral conferences. I didn't get anything from them. Then I spent a summer improving my farming skills. I bought poly wire and hog poles to collect and move some critters around to build the cells. The plan didn't go down well with the cattle, as it didn't take long to teach the animals to walk. The year I decided to do this was a good rainy year which resulted in a lot of growth after the cattle moved. This prompts me to ask another question. I read the books again and this time they educated me.
Thanks to Allan's advice, I now divide my cattle into two herds. A group wanders through a vast desert with no infrastructure. My results there are the same as everyone else's. Another group regularly spun with poly yarn. It was a big paradigm shift for me because I thought dissecting a pig and cutting up a pig was the dumbest thing ever. Now I think it's a good investment.
smaller pasture
By using poly wire I can confine my cattle to a smaller pasture. It makes a lot of things happen. I've seen better hard pots, better soil drainage, more plant variety, and less bare soil between the grass piles because grass is now growing in the area. And understand, there are always weedy areas. He would have the owner take the ATV out and spray them. When you start using poly twine, which causes a herd effect, the weeds will be completely decomposed. A few years later they were no longer introduced as they were replaced by shrubs and grasses. Think about it: no chemical spraying or labor costs required, and now I'm growing weed in the area. This is all possible because I made a deposit instead of a withdrawal. Interest on this deposit was not paid. It goes without saying that chemicals you use can only be used once and then disappear. I can reuse poly cables and pigtails year after year.
Some people around me will put my wife in a difficult situation and say that I wasted the weed I left behind. You never told me anything about it. Here you need grass to grow grass. Since I was there last year I've had quite a few of those this year, even in these dry conditions. When people say things like that, we know we're on the right track.
Doing these things in a certain way is not a panacea and will definitely allow you to unlock the full potential of your farm. However, they will help alleviate the drought burden
Overview of the cattle market
This short marketing week caused a surprise at Value of Gain (VOG). Cattle under 600 pounds have high VOG while heavier animals are over exposed to turbulence. This flat VOG varies from auction to auction and can be in the positive below positive territory. When I calculated the VOG from four to nine weights, the heifers clearly had the best VOG on the spectrum and were in the positive range, meaning the weight gain is paying off. However, hearts have dollars plus VOG. Whether gaining weight pays off depends on your income level. This underscores that cost is key in determining price ratios. For a long time it was believed that if we kept costs down, we could have less downtime and still make money. In buy/sell marketing we don't count pauses, we count to identify profitable relationships and then consider the factors we have or are losing value.
Doug Ferguson's views don't necessarily align with those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress.
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