>What are your soil / herbage and blood tests for these sorts of soils.
Some history: <smile> Most folks here are growing beef cattle, range
sheep, orchards, wine grapes or hay. Almost no one does pasture
except for the ranch horses kept near the house.
The major livestock is traditional ranching. Cattle and sheep locally
are mostly raised out on range all summer. Hay is cut from irrigated
fields and the same fields are used as the winter feeding grounds for
the same cattle or sheep. Due to restrictions on age of calves that
go on range, most folks calve in January and February. There are
several large sheep outfits, (2-5 bands of ewes per ranch, a band is
1000 ewes and her lambs) they lamb in March and April. There are a
few large bison and elk producers but they follow similar management
except their animals never go on range.
We have a large organic orchard and vegetable crop segment. Orchards
and vineyards typically mow or disk to keep grasses out.
We're odd, we have an orchard, but use sheep and geese to mow it. We
are not certified organic due to cost and restrictions on vaccines
and no effective safe dewormers for our sheep.
Here is a document that describes some of our soils.
http://www.desertweyr.com/hops/soiltest.php
We did soil tests in the main grazing orchard section again last year
and those results are similar. We were not testing molybdenum or
selenium initially but will add those rather expensive tests because
we have such a problem with those minerals. Forage tests have varied
widely.
For example we have hay from one particular field. We tested the top
and bottom separately as a trial
to decide how much additional testing we needed to do, the field is
about 10 acres total and is managed the same (same water, fertilizer,
same mix of species of plants across the entire field, hay cut the
same time etc.) One section has 13.1 ppm zinc on a DM basis while the
other section has 25 ppm. We can see similar changes in other
minerals. Hay from one source has 7.7 ppm copper while from another
field we have 15.8 ppm copper. Pasture grasses from our orchard (the
section with the tees in the aerial photo on the page above) have 9.8
ppm copper but from the adjacent pasture (same soil test results,
same basic mix of pasture grass species but no trees, the section to
the west or left side in the photo) we have 7.5 ppm copper. Sodium
levels from the forages we have available range from .02% to .1% and
it goes on. We see huge differences in mineral balance from top to
bottom of small fields, each mesa in the valley has a different mix
and each ditch has different water which affects the mix. Also the
water tests change dramatically from spring through the summer
irrigating season on most mesas. Our water comes from Terror Creek
Ditch and we are fairly consistent in water chemistry although it
does get more alkaline as the summer wears on. We can go from
Selenium deficient to selenium toxic between fields and between areas
of the same field.
>What animal health issues are there?
In our case the biggest problem is sheep not eating their minerals.
So we've been working with a vet and a nutritionist to custom mix a
mineral with extra copper, extra zinc and much less salt than normal.
Overall fertility and fecundity was poor but is improving. Lambs
weaned percentages of all ewes exposed to a ram (my bottom line
figure as that is what I can sell <G>) went from below 70% to over
118% with increased trace mineral supplementation. We were seeing
butcher sheep whose liver test samples showed deficiency in most
trace minerals to the point the vet thought the sheep should have
been dead. That they were basically ok was a miracle. We do see
respiratory problems, exacerbated by the nose bot fly carried by the
local deer. Our pastures appear to be relatively worm free, in terms
of internal parasites. fecal tests rarely show any egg counts worth
doing anything about but we have lost sheep to nose bots. We have not
had any external parasites for over 3 years so no dipping has been
needed at all. We are endemic for most of the clostridial diseases
and bluetongue. We may still be having a severe problem with atypical
bluetongue but since we can't do anything about it both the federal
and local vets have said not to even look.
>What preventative measures are
>used. What soil labs do you recommend for farmers with these conditions?
We've been working with the lab recommended by the agricultural
research station, precision agri-lab in CA because they use a
different process that measure actual availability rather than total
amounts. Unfortunately we cannot buy in custom mixed fertilizers for
trace minerals, something that appears to be common in NZ and Aus. I
can only buy in a total package of trace minerals, that often has way
too much of some things.
>What recommendations do you suggest?
That's why I'm asking. We're just about the only folks locally doing
MIG on irrigated pasture on western soils. Almost all of the info is
based on different soils and most is targeted to dairy cattle. I
can't believe I am the only one so I keep asking for more info. We
have managed to take our pasture area from almost no clover to almost
40% clover with grazing management alone in the last 4 years. We have
not done any fertilizing or overseeding at all so far.
--
Oogie McGuire - oogiem@desertweyr.com
Weyr Associates - Multimedia and Web Authoring Services & Consulting
Desert Weyr - CMK Arabian horses and Black Welsh Mountain Sheep
http://www.desertweyr.com/
Paonia, CO USA
