News

Thompson Farm manager learns from drought

The manager of a beef research farm says dry weather generates valuable data for grazing management.

In his 41^st year at the University of Missouri’s Thompson Farm, manager Jon Schreffler learns from every drought.

“Absolutely, I’ve learned a lot,” Schreffler told Brownfield Ag News at the farm’s field day Monday evening.  “About the time you think you know everything, you figure out you don’t.”

It quit raining for months at the farm site in Northwest Missouri, and Schreffler realized that required more intensive management.

“It got to where every bite [the cattle] were taking wasn’t coming back, and we’ve been through this before,” said Schreffler.  “I knew that if they ate it off into the dirt we probably weren’t going to get the regrowth when it did rain.”

The farm was also short on hay but kept the cow herd and the pastures healthy with supplemental feed and rotational grazing until showers came to the area.

“We got off the pastures early enough before they were completely destroyed,” he said.  “There was something there to bounce back; it made a big difference, it was like spring again after we got 13 inches of rain.”

AUDIO: Jon Schreffler (7 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Story on rotational grazing (1 min. MP3)