By Paul Slomp
Learning from the past
For thousands of years, wild bison herds roamed the grasslands that eventually became the farm that I grew up on in Rimbey, Alberta. These bison herds were always on the move – take a bite, take a step – pulled by the fresh grass that lay ahead, pushed by the hungry predators (including humans) from behind. This short-term movement – take a bite, take a step – extrapolated into extensive migration patterns in the long-term. For the bison, these migration patterns meant a constant supply of fresh, energy- and nutrient-dense grass to grow fat on. For the grass, these migrations meant short periods of intense impact followed by long periods of rest and recovery. Large herds of ruminant mammals and grasslands have co-evolved in migration pattern systems like this the world over.
Grassland management today
Today, in our part of the world, as we have divided up land into small private landholdings, large herds of herbivores can no longer follow these migration patterns. The neighbours of my current 380 acres of grasslands in St-André-Avellin, Quebec would be mightily annoyed if my cattle wandered into their hay or soybean fields. Despite these property boundary limitations, a growing number of livestock farmers are looking at these age-old ruminant-grassland migration systems for inspiration as we try to mimic these systems on our own farms to improve the health of the animals and land under our management, while maintaining the financial viability of our farms at the same time.
Although my father had always grazed his dairy cattle in the Netherlands, it wasn’t until we came to Canada and were surrounded by the many cow-calf producers in central Alberta that we were introduced to the economic benefits of intensive grassland management. In the early 1990s beef prices had been low for decades and finding efficient and low-cost feeding systems was paramount to the survival of these family run cow-calf operations.
Holistically managed grazing systems gained in popularity, and our family also started grazing our dairy herd this way. A decade later, during the mad cow crisis, the only farms that survived were those with intensive rotational grazing systems that kept the costs of production very low. In our pastured dairy herd, we were able to produce a litre of milk 10 cents cheaper than the provincial average. Other metrics too showed benefits of pasturing our dairy herd – our cattle bred more easily, we had very few issues with lameness, plus our cattle averaged 3 more lactation cycles than the provincial average – all metrics that affect the bottom line.
When I started grazing a beef herd in Eastern Canada in 2010, my main motivation was the environmental benefits. With climate change looming large, I felt that actions such as changing the lightbulbs in our homes to LEDs were insufficient. Sure, these actions help reduce our carbon emissions, but the CO2 concentrations are already too high.
The benefits of holistic grazing systems
Working with livestock, grasslands, and soil microbes in symbiosis through a managed grazing system was (and is) one of the only ways that I know how to actually sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Not only that, with a healthy grassland ecosystem, we start healing the water cycle, which, when broken (and it is broken in many agricultural and non-agricultural settings throughout the world), exacerbates the effects of climate change. Additionally, properly managed grazing lands provide amazing habitat for wildlife and a diversity of flora to counter the biodiversity crisis. Insects abound on our farm, and along with it, insectivore bird populations – a recent bird inventory counted 43 different species of birds that call our farm home.
All of these benefits are available to anyone who manages grasslands (including lawns), but let me be clear: just because there is grass does not mean that these benefits are there. There are acres and acres of mismanaged grasslands, pastures, and lawns that do not obtain any of the potential economic or environmental benefits. A conscientious management system is required to help the grasslands meet their full potential. The grasslands (or other lands) we manage are a system, and the better we understand how the system works, the better we can optimize the benefits that system can produce.
Applying regenerative agriculture principles
Understanding and applying the principles of regenerative agriculture is an excellent starting point. Regenerative agriculture is based on the understanding that the plant-based ecosystems have both above-ground and underground biological communities, and that BOTH are needed to have the entire ecosystem thrive. For more than the last half century, agriculture has mainly focused on the above ground biology – to the detriment of the ecosystem as a whole. There are 5 basic principles of regenerative agriculture that I try to apply to the land under my management to ensure that the biological community underground is thriving, which in turn stimulates the biological community above ground. (I realize that not all of these principles are practical all of the time, but the more you can apply, the better your results).
Principle 1: Reduce soil disturbance / tillage. I often compare soil disturbance or tillage to a tornado. The soil is full of transportation and communication infrastructure that is used by soil microbes to send information and particles from one place to another. When we disturb the soil, we wreak havoc on this infrastructure. A one-off disturbance is not the end of the world, and the soil transportation and communication infrastructure will be rebuilt; however, if we disturb or till the soil every year, or multiple times per year, at some point the cost of keeping up that communication and transportation infrastructure will be too high and it will not be rebuilt – drastically reducing the amount of soil microbes that can live and thrive in that soil. By limiting or eliminating tillage and soil disturbance, we allow the soil transportation and communication infrastructure to remain intact, which in turn enables the soil microbes to access everything they need to thrive.
Principle 2: Protect the soil with armour. Since the soil is a home for millions of microbes, we need to safeguard this soil from the elements – just like we build homes for ourselves to protect ourselves from the elements. And there are two particularly damaging elements that we need to protect this underground ecosystem from. The first is sunlight. Sunlight is great at sterilization, and we do not want the beneficial microbes in the soil to be sterilized out of it. The second element is temperature. Soil is dark in colour and heats up quickly in sunlight. Soil microbes tend to be most active from 10 degrees Celsius to 35 degrees Celsius. The largest risk is soil temperatures becoming too hot – sterilizing the soil of microbes that can not handle the heat. Both sunlight and heat contribute to the evaporation of soil moisture – vital to both microbial and plant life. Protecting the soil with armour safeguards both the microbes in the soil and the moisture in the soil.
Principle 3: Ensure there are living roots. Soil microbes need energy to stay alive. This energy comes in the form of sugar made by plants through photosynthesis. Plants use some of these sugars for their own sustenance and growth, but part of the sugar is used to trade with soil microbes for nutrients the plant also needs to grow and thrive. In short, soil microbes scavenge for and deliver Phosphorus, Nitrogen, Magnesium, etc. in exchange for sugar (food) at the plant roots. Living roots from living plants are responsible for feeding soil microbes. From the perspective of the soil microbes, it is quite simple – no living roots means no food.
Principle 4: Ensure plant biodiversity. Different plants have different specialties when it comes to trading with microbes for nutrients. The best-known specialty is the ability of leguminous plants to work with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, but each plant will have a specialty. As such, the more diverse the plants are in a culture, the more diverse will be the microbes being fed by those plants, and the more diverse the nutrients scavenged and traded within that soil ecosystem. It is kind of like going to a food-court in a mall to eat with a group of picky eaters. Since there is a diversity of food on offer, the chances of finding something to eat for everyone is much greater.
Principle 5: Incorporate animals into the system. Animals play three vital roles in fortifying the plant-microbe relationship. As we have seen in principles 3 and 4, the plant feeds the soil microbes through sugars derived from photosynthesis. If we look at the natural growth phases of a plant – from establishment, to vegetative growth, to reproduction – photosynthesis mainly happens in the vegetative growth stage of the plant. By incorporating livestock into the system, grazing or trampling the plant at the appropriate time, we ensure that for the majority of the time plants are in the vegetative growth phase – thus ensuring that photosynthesis is occurring and the soil microbes are being fed.
Secondly, animals are mobile. This allows them to eat nutrients in one place and poop them out at another place – bringing fertility from one place to another. Similarly, the gut microbiome in ruminants is specialized in the decomposition of plant matter into nutritional elements needed for the cattle to live. Many of the microbes in the gut of an animal are very similar to the microbes that decompose plant matter into nutritional elements in the soil (see principle 3). This means that, as cattle are moving around, they are also inoculating the soil with beneficial microbes.
Incorporating animals into the system therefore ensures that plants continue to make sugar available to the soil microbes, and that a diversity of nutrients and microbes are present throughout the property.
Putting the principles into practice
These principles of regenerative agriculture highlight the important elements we must keep in mind while we are designing our grazing systems. However, there is an important distinction to make between grazing to improve the landscape and grazing to improve animal performance. Strictly following the regenerative agriculture principles will enable us to improve the landscape, but ensuring that our animals are growing, healthy, and thriving enables us to generate the income necessary to keep the system going, and that cannot be overlooked.
To maximize our animal performance in the system, we need to ensure that the animals are eating enough energy, which coincides with the vegetative phase of plant growth, when photosynthesis happens. So the key to animal performance is maximizing dietary energy, and making sure that the plants are grazed right before the plants go into their reproductive phase.
The whole grazing system on our farm is based around the vegetative state of the grass – and we use this phrase to guide us: “fast growth equals fast rotations, slow growth equals slow rotations”. We want our cattle to get enough energy. We want the grass to remain in an active vegetative state – so we ensure that every grass plant has had a little nibble, but that there are enough leaves left on each plant to continue photosynthesis and growth, so as to recover quickly from grazing. The number of animals in our herd and how often we move them depend on grazing just enough to take a bite while leaving plenty of leaves for photosynthesis. This is the core of our management.
The key is to build flexibility into the system: if the animals are grazing a little bit too much off each plant, can we move them faster? Do we give them a larger area? Do we supplement their grazing with some hay? Can we get rid of some animals? Inversely, if the animals are not grazing enough off each plant: can we move them slower? Do we give them a smaller area? Do we skip some paddocks and make winter feed? Do we acquire more animals? These are the management levers we can pull to ensure that the grass in our system stays in a vegetative state.
Managing seasonal grazing for maximum results
We start grazing in early May as soon as the grass starts growing. Growth is fast and we move the cattle fast (about 21 days to cover the entire farm). There is very little grass out there when we start grazing, so moving the cattle fast over large acreage ensures that the cattle are getting enough to eat, but that we are not taking away all of the leaves on the grass plants, so that when we come back in 21 days, there will be much more grass available.
Our second rotation is also quick — about 30 to 35 days. Since grass naturally wants to go to seed before the longest day of the year (June 21), we graze it early to keep it in a vegetative state, aiming to have every field grazed at least twice by that date. If grass starts maturing too fast during the second rotation, we may skip ahead and leave some fields ungrazed. Those skipped fields can then be used either for winter feed or left to rest and stockpile forage for later in the season.
After the longest day of the year, grass growth slows, and so do our grazing rotations — stretching to 45-60 days depending on moisture. As we said, fast growth means fast rotations: if there’s enough rain, we aim for 45 days; in dry conditions, about 60. By late August or early September, we extend rotations to around 90 days to stockpile grass through September and October. This ensures we have forage well into December, ending the grazing season not because we run out of grass, but because snow and ice make it inaccessible.
Over time, I’ve seen our pastures steadily improve: the richer colour of the plants, denser growth, greater species diversity, longer vegetative periods, and higher forage volume all tell the story. Our cattle perform better and stay healthier, too. Following the regenerative agriculture principles allows us to keep the system simple and thriving.
We don’t worry about the individual species in our pastures, and we don’t reseed – there is a healthy biodiversity in our grass stand, and different species are dominant in different years due to a variety of factors. Yes, we have weeds, but we don’t have any species that are invading the farm, and some years we have more weeds than others. These plants add to the biodiversity of the plants in our system, and become more numerous when they have an ecological function to play or problem to address. As time progresses, I see fewer weeds, or perhaps they no longer register as a problem.
You too can make this system work
Nature’s complex ecological systems have tremendous capacity to heal our land and our planet. I am convinced that we can work with these natural systems through regenerative agriculture in ways that have enormous environmental benefits, are profitable, and strengthen our local food systems. I encourage anyone who is interested in trying this to try it. Reach out to those further along in their regenerative agricultural journey around you for support. Visit their farms. Invite them to visit yours. It is a learning journey that is not always comfortable, and having someone you can call for support when you have doubts about what you are doing can make all of the difference. Good luck. Let’s put this biology to work!
Paul Slomp
St-André-Avellin, QC
info@grazingdays.ca