Fescue, At Your Service?

– Jason Duggin, UGA Department of Animal and Dairy Science

Fescue can serve as a main forage supply, but there are some things to consider.

TV informercials can be convincing. That new gadget promises to save you time and money for only $19.99, plus shipping and handling. It’s exactly what you need, but the new gadget doesn’t really fulfill all its lofty promises. In the Southeast, one of our main forages looks promising – but doesn’t deliver as expected.

Fescue can serve as a main forage supply, but there are some things that need to be considered to mitigate the toxic endophytes. As a blessing, a pasture full of growing grass looks just like the cure for supplying nutrition through the spring and early fall. As a curse, cattle with an abundant amount of grass are a body condition score thinner than ideal, conception rates are poor, and late-spring hair coats look like shag carpet sopped in mud. Summers are spent in the shade, ponds, and mud holes. Most folks understand tall fescue is bad stuff, but they either don’t know the whole impact or feel helpless to do anything about it. If you ever wondered why producers have fall-calving herds, this is one of the reasons. Breeding seasons in May and June can have very disappointing conception rates when toxic endophyte fescue is the main forage. Although fall calving helps, the growing calves and replacement heifers will be victims come . . .

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