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SOIL HEALTH IN PRACTICE - REAL SOLUTIONS FROM REAL FARMERS

Grassfed Beef and Soil Health: ed blend (primarily oats and peas), and as this was grazed

Profit, Possibilities and Promise off it was planted to a mix of summer annual forages (BMR
sorghum-sudangrass, pearl millet, sunn hemp, cowpeas,

The fastest growing market demand in the beef industry is buckwheat, okra, sunflower), which was followed by anoth-
for grass finished beef. As compared to grainfed, grass fin- er winter annual mix (rye, radish, annual ryegrass, oats).
ished beef has a healthier balance of Omega-3 fatty acids, is Other acres were planted to a stockpiled photoperiod-sen-
higher in fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A and vitamin E, sitive BMR sorghum-sudan for winter grazing.
and is higher in the cancer-preventative conjugated linoeic The main drawback to this rotation was that the gap be-
acids (CLA’s). Many consumers also see grass finishing as a tween grazing one crop and the time it took for the next
more humane and environmentally sound way of feeding crop to develop was too long, and the stockpiled sorghum
cattle than feedlot finishing. did not provide high enough gain in the winter. However,
However, there can be problems with grass finished beef. this initial experiment was successful enough to expand
First, because grassfed is not being produced on a large the project with a modified rotation to eliminate the gaps.
scale and run through the large packers, it is often hard for The plan now consists of dividing the pivots in half, with
many consumers to find. Secondly, many consumers have each half in a slightly different crop rotation: the first, a
had a cut of “grassfed” beef that gave them a very poor rotation of a winter mix (cereal rye, annual ryegrass, oats)
eating experience: tough, dry, full of gristle, and with a rotated with a summer annual grazing mix (BMR sor-
strong “gamey” flavor. Much of this so-called grass finished ghum-sudangrass, pearl millet, buckwheat, sunn hemp,
beef was just a salvage product from a reproductive animal, cowpeas, crabgrass, mung beans, okra, sunflower); the
an old cow or old bull. While these cull animals were not second, a rotation of another winter annual mix (willow
fed grain, they also were not truly finished at all and were creek wheat, annual ryegrass) and another summer annual
not managed to produce good quality beef. mix (BMR corn, pearl millet, sunn hemp, cowpeas, buck-
wheat, mung beans, sunflower), with the two halves of the
To make good quality beef, the following criteria must be pivot grazed in sequence to provide nearly year-round, un-
met: the animal must gain at least 1.75 pounds of gain a day interrupted grazing. Since the stockpiled sorghum did not
every day of its life until maturity (any day in which ani- provide gains high enough, alternatives for winter grazing
mals don’t gain, marbling cells that give meat juiciness are are being explored. One is to simply expand the acreage
replaced with gristle that makes meat tough) and it must be of rye cover crops on pivots currently in corn and cotton;
on a high plane of nutrition at time of harvest, with a forage another is to plant pivots for dedicated winter grazing to
high in glucose content for good fat deposition and not ex- perennial forages that maintain good grazing quality in
cessive in protein, which can cause gamey flavor. the winter, like a novel endophyte tall fescue or summer
dormant fescue.
In order to provide high quality grass finished beef to the
consumer, a joint endeavor between Pharo Cattle Compa-
ny (a genetics provider specializing in low maintenance
animals that fatten easily on grass) and Cactus Feeders Photos by Dale Strickler
(one of the largest cattle finishing operations in the world)
was undertaken to see if it was possible to economically
produce a high quality, grass finished beef on forage alone
and on a scale big enough to make it worth the while of a
major packer.
To make this happen, these companies sought the assis-
tance of Green Cover Seed to develop a sequence of annual
forages that could be grazed 12 months out of the year and
provide adequate quality for the animals to fatten by 18
months of age, a very tall order! The first year, a trial project
was performed that consisted of a rotation of a spring plant- High quality mixes with ryegrass, rye, and triticale are the base of the fall planted
mixes in this program.

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