Corteva Range and Pasture Specialist Abe Smith describes the cow-calf producer as a grass farmer. “Just like you harvest bushels of corn or beans out of a field, they’re harvesting grass, it’s just going through the cow,” explained Smith. “At the end of the year, you’re running that cow across the scale. That’s your yield, right? So the better that we can do in terms of putting grass on the pasture, the better off cow-calf producers are.” Smith believes annual weeds, like common ragweed, are taking precious nutrients and resources from grass production and a weed management plan should be a priority. “Go out there early season, maybe not a pre-season but in that mid-May to mid-June timeframe, with a planned herbicide application on many of these pastures. They can be wildly successful with that.
