ElO-Foraging Around, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 19, 2003
Duane Pysher
NRCS Pasture Specialist
Oh, the sight of green on
the landscape. What a mental
uplift to me, a non-winter per
son.
The return of green means
the 2003 season of Pennsylva
nia grazing conferences is
over. The featured speakers at
three of the conferences were
the Roche Brothers from Ire
land. One of their talks dealt
with the subject of the poten
tial for pasture-based grazing
dairy farms in the northeast
ern U.S. They concluded that
there is a huge potential for
these types of dairy enter
prises. But interestingly, they
also concluded that the U.S.
can learn from the mistakes
and successes that other coun
tries have made with their
grazing programs, and that
you cannot directly transfer
their systems into your region.
You need to select key man
agement practices from their
systems which you can adapt,
and then research them as
part of your system.
It was interesting to hear
them discuss this. All too
often we hear that the only
ones who know anything
about grazing are from the
“down under” in New Zea
land (N.Z.) or from other for
eign countries.
I would agree that N.Z. has
done an outstanding job of de
veloping and adapting grazing
technologies within their live
stock industry. They have
done this perhaps better than
any other country in the
world. Theirs is a ryegrass
based system that uses high
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inputs of nitrogen fertilizer.
Because of their predominate
ly mild, moist, maritime cli
mate, it works extremely well.
However, when the idea
comes up that we should
adopt their system of grazing
without modification and ad
aptation, I usually cringe. The
comments from the Roche
brothers made me feel good
about my reservations.
Don’t get me wrong. I feel
we have a lot to team from
their grazing experiences and
expertise. I believe that we
need to make the proper mod
ifications and adjustments to
their ways to make them work
within our climate and system
limitations. When we are able
to do this, we can make a
good thing even better. I al
ways think back to comments
that my mentor, Tom Calvert,
makes regarding grazing sys
tems: “No two systems are ex
actly the same and if we try to
exactly copy one farm’s graz
ing system to another farm,
one of those farms will have
the wrong system because of
the differences that exist be
tween the two farms.”
We can adapt key parts of
the one system to the other,
with modifications to over
come the differences, and
have two functioning systems
that meet both farms needs.
Another highlight of the
Pennsylvania Grazing and
Forage Conference was the
Pennsylvania Forage and
Grassland Council’s (PFGC)
annual meeting and awards
ceremony. The PFGC pres
ented several awards to excep
tional individuals involved
with the forage industry in
Pennsylvania. One award was
PFGC’s Special Award pres
ented to David Fink for his
many outstanding contribu
tions to PFGC and the hay in
dustry. After Dave accepted
his award, he made a few
comments to the group and
quoted Freeman Dyson, a
physics professor at Princeton
University. Dyson was one of
100 thinkers who were asked
the question “What has been
the most important invention
of the past 2000 years?”
Dyson answered the question
with one word and that was
“hay.”
He went on to explain that
in the Old World of Greece
and Rome, there was no hay.
Their civilization with horses
could only exist in warmer cli
mates where there were grass
es to graze all year long.
Sometime in the Dark Ages,
some unknown genius invent
ed hay. The land was man
aged to grow grass and the
process of making hay allow
ed civilization to move north
ward into colder winter cli
mates and thus, hay gave
birth to London, Paris, Berlin
and even New York and the
United States. This all came
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about because of hay.
It is just hard to imagine
what a large role hay has
played in the expansion and
development of our modem
society. Something so simple,
but yet so important. It is hard
for me, a forage person, to re
alize how big a part hay
played in this expansion. One
would have expected the an
swer to be the computer or
penicillin or some other mod
em-day invention.
I guess you are concluding
that I came away from the
conferences with some good
information and ideas. You
are correct. There was much
to be learned from all the
speakers and presentations. I
know that there were more
than 450 people in attendance
at the three March grazing
conferences where the Roche
Brothers spoke. There were
several other grazing confer
ences in the state during the
year, and I know their attend
ance was up as well.
There is a lot of interest in
grazing and that interest is
growing each year. Next year
there will be a similar series of
grazing conferences and I
hope you plan on attending at
least one of them. Watch for
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QUICKER HAY
Shorter field drying time = Lowered weather exposure.
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Shorter drying time = earlier baling time.
BETTER HAY
More crude protein.
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Less neutral detergent fiber.
More dry matter intake.
More digestible dry matter.
the dates of these meetings
and conferences in popular
press magazines like Lancas
ter Farming and then get reg
istered to attend.
The planning committee
meets to decide on the fea
tured speakers for the three
grazing conferences (North
west, PFGC, and Tioga and
Bradford within the next few
months. Should you have
ideas on speakers you would
like to hear or topics you
would like to learn more
about, let me know your
thoughts and ideas.
I also would like to ask for
ideas on subjects you would
like to see me discuss in my
column. I enjoy putting my
thoughts down on paper. I get
feedback from some of you re
garding my “Panderings” but
I would like to hear from
more of you. Perhaps I can
share some of your experi
ences and stories with others.
In closing, I will share a
conversation I had recently
with one of my readers. In
fact, it was just after the Feb
ruary issue of Foraging
Around was published. Let’s
call him Aaron. Aaron tells
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