What’s the most efficient way to produce protein on farmland?
Reproductive crops such as corn and tomatoes have a genetic limit on yield potential. Each plant will only produce a certain number of buds and fruit. Most plants don’t come anywhere close to developing all the buds and fruit they are genetically capable of because they are restricted by their environment. It is common for most plants to produce a marketable yield somewhere around 10-15 percent of their inherent genetic potential.
However, vegetative crops do not have these same genetic constraints. When plants are maintained in a vegetative growth stage, the limit to growth and yield is photosynthetic capacity. Crops commonly only produce sugars at 10-15 percent of their photosynthetic capacity — often because they have inadequate carbon dioxide, water, chlorophyll or manganese.
When optimal CO2, water, sunlight and nutrients are provided, grasses and forages maintained in a vegetative growth stage can be extraordinarily productive. I would suggest they can produce more food protein and more calories per acre than any other method, while also regenerating the entire ecosystem.
This idea has been around for a long time. Here’s a description of it, in fact, from a cover article in this magazine from 1977:
Last summer, C.J. Fenzau of Boise, Idaho, divided a 31-acre field into single-acre plots. He put 272 cattle into the first single-acre plot when the grass was knee-high, on April 5, 1976. By the next morning the first plot had been mowed down much like a city lawn. During that single day the cattle had eaten the whole plant — the rich upper part, the leafy mid-part and the fibrous stem. This gave the animals a total ration — a well-balanced ration at that.
“If you put cattle on fresh, young pasture,” Fenzau told Acres U.S.A., “they eat the high protein buds the first day. The next day they get a little less value, and so on. In four or five days of milking, you see a cow on pasture give more milk than any grain would ever produce. As pastures go down, farmers put in grain. This animal is fighting her own droppings in the pasture. She is compacting the ground. When you’re stripping a plant, you’re putting it under stress each day, and you have less leaf capacity for photosynthesis. But in 30 days a plant has a chance to grow back all the leaves in their full working power for more productivity.”
On the second day, the cattle were moved to acre No. 2. The first acre was then given a shot of irrigation water. This melted away the still-soft droppings and set the stage for at least 30 days of growth. There was a second irrigation during the 30- to 35-day growth period.
The growth period was stretched to 35 days as cattle were shifted from acre No. 2 to acres No. 3, 4, 15, 20 — whatever. During May, June and July only 20 of the 31 acres were used. Cattle couldn’t mow down the grass fast enough.
“We’re looking at having 400 head of 500 to 600 pounders there next year to utilize the grazing potential of those 31 acres to the optimum,” Fenzau summarized.
What does this amount to in terms of beef production? Over the scales, Fenzau logged in 2.4 to 2.5 pounds of grain per head per day. A total of 2.25 or so on 400 head means 1,000 pounds of beef per day. This multiplied by 200 days comes to 200,000 pounds of beef off 31 acres, or in excess of 6,000 pounds of beef per acre.
Needless to say, the best fertility management has to underscore such heads-up farming. This management has only one name — scientific eco-farming.
These results were achieved in 1976 — without the forage genetics and nutritional management knowledge we have developed today. What would have to happen to get back to these production levels?
What is the true potential of forages that could be released if we managed their nutrition as closely as we managed that of other crops? What if we managed our pasture nutrition as well as our grain crops?
Who benefits from the increased farm profitability of this management system? Who benefits when farmers continue to grow grain that produces less food per acre, with lower profitability? What are the incentives to maintain the status quo?
