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Little River, TX | Besides annual grasses like sudangrass and wheat we have sod type and bunch grasses.
As a general rule the bunch grasses does not take well to overstocking. The sod types can persist with considerable overstocking, for that grass.
I the good old days besides switchgrass and gammagrass hidden from view was buffalograss and curly mesquite. When the folks from the east first came here they saw grass standing 5 ft tall and tried to graze it down to look like a bluegrass meadow. In generation the predominant grass was the buffalograss and curly mesquite with islands of needle grasses. Still not too bad. Went from 2 animal units to the acre to one animal unit to 10 acres. During our periodic droughts the stocking rate would drop to one to 25 acres. or worse.
In the Blacklands using native grasses under range management, one animal to 5 or so acres is reasonable. The smart cattlemen stock at about 66% of that. The greedy or ignorant feed a lot of hay.
With bermudagrass and a few other sod grasses and a good bit of management and fertilizer about an animal to 3 acres is reasonable. Again the smart ones stock at about 66% of this rate.
The only thing I know about cool season grasses is they do not survive our summers, with out a whole lot of water and some shade. | |
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Question about intensive grazing
