Stockpile Grazing and Soil Health

Stockpiling means no grazing or harvesting of cool-season perennial grasses for 60-70 days prior to killing frost in the fall. The stockpiled forages can then be grazed in the winter, thus extending the grazing season.

Prevent soil compaction

Wet soil loses its strength and is easily pugged by livestock when grazed, especially when the grazing animals move. The trampling, treading, and pugging damage destroys the existing forage resources and soil surface horizon structure, leading to soil compaction and pasture deterioration. Even with minor soil compaction and pasture deterioration in a relatively dry winter, pasture regrowth can be considerably slower and production reduced in the following growing season. You can employ the following techniques to avoid soil compaction from stockpile grazing.

Planning pasture/farm drainage

Surface or subsurface drainage techniques can be used to alleviate wet soil problems in low-lying areas in the landscape or where impervious layers cause a seasonally high water table. Before installing drainage, ensure you have a good plan ahead of the grazing event and investment to carry it out. It also involves soil disturbance from farm equipment and drainage system development that needs to be considered.

Strategic fencing

The grazing area can be strategically fenced to separate lowland and upland areas with different soil moisture conditions. With strategic fencing, rotational grazing can be used to graze relatively drier paddocks after a precipitation event.

Supplement stockpile grazing with feeding

By meeting about half of the forage needs with stockpile grazing, probably during the day, and another half through feeding hay in the feedlot, probably at night, will decrease the animals' grazing and trampling time, therefore decreasing the probability of causing soil compaction under wet conditions.

Backfence as often as possible

It is normally unnecessary to use backfencing when stockpile grazing because the stockpiled forage species are dormant with no regrowth. Grazing animals will not go back to the previously grazed area more often in contrast with the nondormant growing season, in which the regrowth of forage species after grazing is more attractive to the grazing animals. However, backfencing should be used to avoid extra trampling by grazing animals in the wet winter months to avoid soil compaction.

More frequent moves

When soil conditions are wet, it is beneficial to move animals more frequently so that soil is only exposed to their impact for a short period of time.

Graze the pasture with the tallest stockpiled forages on wet days

Taller forages have a flotation effect and protect the soil better than shorter ones. Furthermore, livestock will walk around the paddock less to search for the forage in taller and denser forages. During drier days, the less productive and shorter forages can be grazed.

Use bigger paddocks to graze during wet days

Big paddocks are usually not recommended as they are closer to a continuous grazing system, introduce uneven animal grazing patterns, and lower the forage use efficiency. However, a bigger paddock provides grazing animals flexibility to graze in an area that is not very wet while still meeting the animals' forage needs.

No grazing when the soil is near saturation

When soil is saturated, feeding the animals in a feedlot or sacrifice areas is recommended. This will significantly decrease the area and intensity of soil puddling and compaction.

Reseeding and renovation

The severely compacted and puddled areas do not recover readily, particularly on clayey soil types, and may need reseeding in the spring. Some annual or perennial taproot legumes or other forbs can be used to renovate the impacted areas. Some agronomic practices, such as light tillage, can be used to level the area before reseeding.

Improve soil health

Besides the above-mentioned prevention practices, we can also employ some techniques to improve soil health.

Distribute urine and dung more evenly

Moving water points, salt blocks, and other supplements around the paddock can prevent grazing animal concentration in those areas. This will lead to a more evenly distributed urine and dung to accelerate nutrient cycling and soil organic matter enrichment.

Grazing at the right intensity and leaving a right stubble height

A mistake is to believe that since stockpile grazing happens normally in the dormant season, it is OK to graze very intensively, leaving a very short stubble height. However, the short stubble height will lead to a high percentage of bare soil and less organic matter return. It also contributes to slow regreening next growing season and lower yield. Lowering the grazing intensity and leaving at least 3-4" stubble can decrease soil erosion and stabilize soil organic matter.