48 Rancher Puts Cool Season Invasives in the Rearview with Adaptive Grazing

If you have not yet listened to the previous podcast with Justin Thompson we strongly recommend you do before listening to this one. The first release of this podcast was set to coincide with the spring thaw and the green-up of cool season grasses and forbs. One of the biggest threats to South Dakota rangeland is the increasing prevalence of three cool season invasive species, in particular, smooth brome, Kentucky bluegrass and crested wheatgrass. We spoke to Candice Mizera from McLaughlin, SD, located in the northern part of South Dakota, just west of the Missouri River. Candice and her husband farm and ranch – they have a diversified crop rotation on their farm that includes cover crops and they rotationally graze beef cattle. Apart from running a farm and ranch, Candice is also a board member of the SD soil health coalition. When Candice took over the 4,000-acre operation, they had only four pastures. Today, they have provided fence and water such that their operation consists of 100-180 acre pastures, and in the process, doubled their carrying capacity. In this podcast, Candice walks us through the evolution of some of the Kentucky bluegrass issues that emerged on her pasture. Candice talks about the adverse consequences of “babying pastures” through letting them rest too much and not grazing early enough and then noticing the adverse consequences of seeing thick mats of Kentucky bluegrass thatch on the pasture. “And so I guess then we realized that we were part of the problem by letting it rest too much and not getting in there early, we exacerbated the problem.” Candice is now several years down the road remedying the Kentucky bluegrass problem, in conjunction with rangeland management specialist, Ryan Beer, based in Buffalo, SD. The method that Beer recommended and that Candice employ involved increasing disturbance through grazing events , possibly leaving the herd a few days longer to trample and or utilize the cool season invasive grasses. This may seem counterintuitive to some of us who have preached “minimize disturbance”, but Candice has been able to innovate and they have seen good results on her land. We were also joined by Emily Helms, state rangeland management specialist for South Dakota, and Ryan beer, rangeland management specialist out of Buffalo, SD. Ryan works directly with Candice. If you have an inkling that cool season invasive species are a problem, this podcast is for you. Resources mentioned in the podcast: Workshop on Cool-Season Invasive Species in the Northern Great plains (note, while the hyperlinks to the full papers no longer work, the abstracts are useful. Note we don’t necessarily endorse every practice, but want to share this with the idea that the abstracts provide useful education and reflect more recent thoughts on cool-season invasives) https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/CoolSeasonGrass2014_10.pdf Regenerative Agriculture Podcast interview with Fred Provenza: https://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/episode-81-fred-provenza Growing Connections South Dakota App: https://www.sdsoilhealthcoalition.org/growing-connections-app/ SD Grazing Exchange: https://sdgrazingexchange.com/ SD Soil Health Coalition: https://www.sdsoilhealthcoalition.org/