There will be a meal provided. Please call the Extension Office to reserve your meal by 11:45 am Tuesday the 25 th.

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1 The Powell Pow Wow Cooperative Extension Service Powell County 169 Maple Street Stanton KY, (606) Fax: (606) extension.ca.uky.edu Livestock Producer Association Meeting - July 25, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 25, 6:30 p.m. at the Powell County Cooperative Extension Service Office, 169 Maple Street, Stanton, KY, Dr. Kenneth Burdine, Associate Extension Professor of Agricultural Economics will be our speaker for this meeting There will be a meal provided. Please call the Extension Office to reserve your meal by 11:45 am Tuesday the 25 th. Arkansas Farm Tour Meeting July 31, 6:30 p.m. There will be a meeting Monday, July 31, 6:30 p.m. at the Powell County Cooperative Extension Service Office to discuss the upcoming Arkansas Farm Tour that will take place September 6-10 th, If you are interested in learning about the agriculture industry in Arkansas, to learn about the different and innovative practices that are being set in place on Arkansas farms, then this will be the tour for you! Please attend if you are interested in going. Urban Forest Initiative Program August 8, 6 p.m. Join UK s Urban Forest Initiative (UFI) and Environmental & Natural Resources Issues (ENRI) Task Force for a free workshop on methods of tree health assessment, tree care, and soil nutrient management! They will be at the Powell County Extension Office on Tuesday, August 8 th, 2017 from 6-8 p.m. The workshop is FREE and open to the public. If you would like to confirm your attendance, RSVP to the Powell County Extension Service Office with Lawrence Caudle at ( /office) or ( /cell). Farmer Banker Field Day August 25, 2017 Farmer Banker Field Day will be on August 25 th this year. Ben and Sherri Burgher of Dacha Farms will be this year s host. Please come out and attend this annual event. There will be food, music, local business booths and different educational booths set up with specialist from the University of Kentucky to discuss topics such as mineral supplementation, forages, and herd health. Participating in 2 of the 3 discussions led by the specialists will count towards your educational component for CAIP funding. The field day will be located on Highway 82 going towards Estill County. This will be an event you don t want to miss.

2 2017 Kentucky Grazing School September 27-28, 2017 FROM: The Forage News, Dr. Ray Smith and Krista Lee, University of Kentucky The Kentucky Grazing School will be held on September 27-28, 2017 at the Woodford County Extension office and the Oran C. Little Research Center in Versailles, KY. This two-day program includes hands-on exercises, such as building temporary paddocks and watering systems, and assessing pasture production. Classroom discussions will cover topics including forages, animal management, and grazing systems. Enrollment is limited, so apply early. Past participants range from new to experienced grazers and all have gained new information and skills to implement on their operations. Pre-register for the grazing school as enrollment is limited to the first 45. The $50.00 registration fee includes all materials, grazing manuals, breaks, and lunch both days. Partially funded through the Governor s Office of Agriculture Policy. For more information, contact Zach Workman, , Zewo222@uky.edu or visit the UK Forage Website. Timely Tips Dr. Roy Burris, Beef Extension Professor, University of Kentucky Spring-Calving Cow Herd Watch for pinkeye and treat if necessary. Minimize problems by clipping pastures, controlling face flies and providing shade. Monitor the bulls activity and physical condition as the breeding season winds down. Remove bulls from the cow herd by the end of the month and keep them away from the cows. A short calving season can concentrate labor during the calving season; group calves by age so that it is easier to find a convenient time to vaccinate, castrate, dehorn, etc.; and provide a more uniform group of calves at market time. Mid-July (when the bulls are being removed) is a good time to deworm cattle, use a product that is effective against inhibited ostertagia. Re-implant calves which were implanted at birth if the type of implant and amount of time indicate. Calves which haven t been vaccinated for blackleg should be. Spraying or using a pour-on for flies while cattle are gathered can supplement other fly control methods. Remember to work cattle early in the morning when it is cool and handle them gently to minimize stress. Fescue pastures tend to go dormant in July and August, so look for alternatives like warm season grasses during this period of time. Try to keep the young calves gaining weight. Go to pastures which have been cut for hay to have higher quality re-growth when it is available. Consider cutting warm season grass pastures for hay, if reserves have not been restored yet. Fall-Calving Cow Herd Get ready for fall calving and plan to have good pasture available at calving and through the breeding season. De-worm cows in mid-july with a product that is effective against inhibited ostertagia. Fall-calving cows should be dry and pregnant now. Their nutrient needs are minimal and they can be

3 maintained on poor pasture to avoid over fattening. Keep a good free-choice mineral mix available at all times. You can use a lower phosphorus mineral supplement now, if you want to save a little money. These cows are regaining body condition after a long winter feeding period. Stockers Sell heavier grazing cattle before rate of gain decreases or they get into a heavyweight category. This will also relieve grazing pressure as pasture growth diminishes. They can be replaced with lightweight calves after pastures recover. Lighter cattle which are kept on pasture need to be rotated to grass-legume or warm-season grass pastures to maintain a desirable level of performance. Re-implant these calves and deworm with a product that is effective against inhibited ostertagia. General Maintain a weed control program in permanent pastures and continue to spot-spray thistle, honey locust, etc. Check pastures for downed wild cherry trees after storms (wilted wild cherry leaves are toxic to cattle). Be sure that clean water is always available, especially in hot weather. Make routine checks of the water supply. Cattle need 13 to 20 gallons of clean water in hot weather. Cattle should have access to shade. Start soil testing pastures to determine fertilization needs for this fall. Have forage analyses conducted on spring-cut hay and have large, round bales covered. Begin planning the winter feeding program now. Most of the hay was cut late due to a wet spring but a dry period permitted it to be put up without getting it rained on so overall not a bad haying season just cut late. The Forage Doctor Dr. Jimmy Henning, Extension Professor, Forage Specialist, University of Kentucky Out for a walk.

4 Figure 1. Pasture walks produce complex questions. Can the answers be simple? I love pasture walks as living classrooms. There is nothing like putting myself in the place of the farmer and deciding what single thing would or should they do next. Pasture questions are very often complex as they involve weather, plant biology, and a harvesting animal. But good answers are simple, clear and to the point. And in the pasture walk context, they must consider all factors. Advice to the farmer has to be clear about what steps should be taken next given the limited time and resources of most farming situations. Interestingly enough, I recently took part in a campus discussion about the nature of answers farmers needed. Some lamented that complex answers were the best but were not well received. Others felt that practice adoption required us as farmer advisors to reduce complex farming issues down to a doable task and not a list of tasks or considerations or options. It was an animated discussion. Ok, so how does this relate to a pasture walk, such as the one we did on a Saturday in late June in Marion County. Pasture walks present complex, system questions. The answer has to integrate plant goals, livestock goals, farm goals AND fit into the time and resource budget. The pasture walk challenged me to develop reasonable (and hopefully simple) steps which will lead to a sound pasture system. This list differs from most I have read in that it is intended to be adopted in order. See how far along you are on this list. Steps that require more time than money. 1. Have clear goals, especially tonnage and quality of the forage and performance targets for the livestock. Pasture decisions will vary widely, especially when trying to meet high performance targets of growing animals. 2. Have a pasture map that includes the soil type and their productivity. UK publication AGR-222 will walk you through the process to estimate carrying capacity of cool season pastures using the web soil survey. 3. Get current soil tests for all pasture fields. Soil nutrient status directly affects yield of grasses and especially legumes. Tests are inexpensive and a basic part of a pasture plan. Test soils even though you cannot bring all fields up to fertility goals. Current test information will help you be strategic with the fertilizer investments you can make. 4. Know what you have in your pasture. Tall fescue, bluegrass and white clover are the typical species found, but they differ in growth characteristics, yield and quality. Steps that require greater investment. (Note: This is where the list gets tougher and more open to debate.)

5 5. Develop a water system. Livestock in the temperate eastern U.S. will only range about 800 feet from their water source. On my recent pasture walk, areas nearest the water were overgrazed and forage availability increased as distance from water increased. 6. Develop a rotational grazing plan and follow it as the weather and pasture and your time allow. This step is simple to state and complex to carry out. Small libraries have been written on the subject. Remember, you just need to get better year after year, and in order to do that you have to start! Well-managed rotational grazing systems combat overgrazing, and overgrazing has been called the single biggest impediment to pasture productivity. Being able to control where animals graze, for how long and how intensively will help you keep residual green leaf area which speeds regrowth. But this ability also gives you tools for weed control, seedhead suppression and legume establishment that are invaluable. 7. Deal with the endophyte of tall fescue. Placement of this step late in this list will be challenged by some, even by many. Truly most fescue in Kentucky does contain an endophyte that results in economic losses to livestock producers. That fact alone warrants action. Management strategies include keeping it leafy, diluting with legumes, strategic avoidance and replacement. All are effective and practiced across Kentucky. However, having a rotational grazing plan that keeps pastures growing will help farmers deal with tall fescue. 8. Have a plan to graze as long as possible each year. Assess the surplus and deficit times of your pasture system, and consider possible forage additions or replacement for the deficit times. Remember that replacement may need to happen to get the quality needed in addition to the quantity. Most of the time, late summer is the challenge for Kentucky pasture systems. Accessing more acres will help, but your situation may warrant some new forages in your pasture system. Certainly there are many more ways to look at developing a pasture system than in this short list. But it is a heck of a good start. Happy foraging. Kentucky Beef Cattle Market Update Dr. Kenny Burdine, Livestock Marketing Specialist, University of Kentucky The downtrend for CME feeder cattle futures continued for much of the last month, although at a somewhat slower pace. However, as I write this (July 13, 2017), they have actually pulled back very close to where they were a month ago with the CME August through November Feeder Cattle Futures contracts in the low-mid $150 s. Slaughter weights have continued to rise seasonally, but remain below year-ago levels. Fed cattle prices continued their downtrend through the first week of July, but did see some improvement during the second week. It is not clear yet how sustainable these recent gains in the fed and feeder cattle markets will be. Local cash markets for feeder cattle held well during June as can be seen in the following charts for 550# and 850# steers. I showed these same charts last month with price data through May. With the holiday week earlier this month, trends are a little harder to discern, but prices appear to be mostly steady since the end of June. Since calf prices peak seasonally in the spring, steady summer markets are a good thing.

6 It continues to be a relatively good weather year for cattle producers. The most recent Drought Monitor continues to show some drought in the Northern Plains primarily the eastern part of Montana and the Dakotas. But, fairly good moisture conditions exist elsewhere. Pasture conditions are generally quite good for Kentucky, as many producers got significant rainfall in early July. Figure # Medium & Large frame #1-2 Steers KY Auction Prices Source: USDA-AMS, Livestock Marketing Information Center, Author Calculations Figure # Medium & Large Frame #1-2 Steers Kentucky Auction Prices Source: USDA-AMS, Livestock Marketing Information Center, Author Calculations

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