November 9, 2005

 

New prairie grasses seen giving cattle faster growth
 

 

Two new varieties of big bluestem prairie grass could boost beef cattle weight by as much as 50 pounds a head, but they are not expected to transform the US cattle industry overnight, the developing researcher and a market analyst said.

 

The varieties, named "Bonanza" and "Goldmine", were developed by Nebraska researchers working for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Nebraska and were tested in eastern Nebraska, according to an ARS news release.

 

Two companies are developing the seed and are expected to have limited quantities available on the market next year, Ken Vogel, who leads ARS' Wheat, Sorghum and Forage Research Unit in Lincoln, Nebraska, told Dow Jones Newswire.

 

Cattle graze on grass before heading to feedlots to finish their weight gain and be prepared for slaughter.

 

The ARS news release said the Pawnee and Kaw varieties have been the leading big bluestems in the central Plains and Midwest for more than 40 years, a reign stemming from their broad adaptability to the regions' diverse growing conditions.

 

Vogel said bluestem is a warm-season grass and will be useful to producers who have cattle grazing in June, July and August, a time when brome and fescue grass varieties do not do as well. Larger operators with a lot of land in pasture may want to keep some of their land covered with these cooler-season varieties and use the bluestem in the heat of the summer.

 

The new varieties are adaptable in a region from southern Kansas into the middle of South Dakota, Vogel said, and would be especially important on marginal cropland used for cow-calf operations where the animals draw nutrients from forage rather than grains.

 

Jack Salzsieder, president of K&S Financial & Marketing, of Grimes, Iowa, said these new grass varieties could increase the pounds of beef produced for each acre for those who could use it, and it could take less corn to finish them in the feedlot.

 

Ken Winter, owner of Winter Feedyard at Dodge City, Kansas, said cattle coming off this type of grass might spend a little less time on feed than those of the same age coming off other grass, but it would depend on how soon he could get a packer buyer to consider purchasing them.

 

Generally, it takes about 100 days on feed for the packer buyer to think they're worth looking at, Winter said. For those selling on a live basis, the feeder is going to want to direct the buyer's gaze toward these cattle as soon as they are close to being ready for slaughter, even if it takes fewer days on feed to get to that point, he said. This feeder would not want to keep them on feed any longer than necessary since he is not getting paid for the yield-grade of the carcasses.

 

But a feeder who is selling cattle on a packer's grid will want to keep them on feed for the normal length of time since he is getting paid for the yield-grade of the carcasses. Some packer purchasing programmes categorise the carcasses based on the amount and quality of the meat, and feeders are rewarded or penalised based on how the carcasses fall into the grid. Time spent on feed produces the better yield-grade ratings, Winter said.

 

Pawnee and Kaw grass varieties, however, were never specifically bred with forage quality in mind, Vogel said in the ARS release. Goldmine and Bonanza offer the best of both worlds, combining adaptability with improved forage quality.

 

In pasture trials from 2000 to 2002, cattle that grazed the new big bluestems gained 18 to 50 pounds more per acre than those that grazed Pawnee and Kaw, the release said. Researchers estimate these gains could mean net-profit increases of US$15 to more than US$35/acre a year for beef producers.

 

On marginal cropland, yearling steers that grazed pastures of Goldmine and Bonanza generated net profits of up to US$119/acre, the ARS said. This is 2.4 times more profit than the producer would have earned by growing corn on the same land during the same years, according to the researchers'estimates.

 

Certified seed of Goldmine and Bonanza is expected to become available in 2006, Vogel told Dow Jones.

 

David Stock, president of Stock Seed Farms at Murdock, Nebraska, which is developing the Bonanza variety as seed, said the company has not yet set a retail price for the seed. It is expected to be a little higher than the older varieties "but not dramatically higher," he said.