Reed Canary Animal Impact Revisited

With the recent warm weather, forages are green when they are normally brown this time of year.  Especially down in the swamp pasture.  This wetland area is quite unique, tucked between the more common rolling hills of Lancaster County.  While trudging through the muck with portable fence I was struck by a change in vegetation and open water.  Why the change?  Please refer back to the July 2015 post “Animal Impact – Reed Canary Grass Example“.  Take a moment to look at photos from 2014 & 2015 and compare what you notice in the 2016 photos below.

The first photo shows open water with small floating algae along with a number of different broadleaf plants and some cattails.  Diversity abounds in this area but what happened to the Broad Leaf Arrowhead that was thick in the 2015 photo, the first year after animal impact?

In the photo below we note that the reeds canary grass still maintains a stronghold on most of the swamp area.  Reeds canary is a very productive forage, good for erosion control and our herd doesn’t mind it at all.  Again, my eyes are drawn to the diversity at the bottom of the photo, only made possible by animal impact.

I recall hunting this area about 20 years ago with a wildlife biologist.  I asked, what could we do to increase diversity in this swamp area for wildlife?  How could we beat back the monoculture of invasive reeds canary?  He thought for a moment and came up with the idea of “try a burn”.  We did burn this area several times before bringing the herd to the farm.  Let’s just say burning had NO impact compared to what the herd was able to do in just a few weeks.  In addition the “herd effect” has now proven to have a lasting impact!

So is this good, bad or does it even matter?

• From a strictly “production” stand point, the reeds canary may give more total pounds of forage for the herd.
• From an ecosystem stand point, we prefer the DIVERSITY:
  • Some species may excel during different times of the year.
    • Monoculture grass results in boom or bust.
  • Different plant species, different nutrient values.
    • Cows can choose between plants.
    • Don’t you like a salad bar of choices rather than just lettuce?
  • Wildlife thrive on edges of habitat.
    • The herd has created an edge in a solid stand of grass!

So the next time someone tells you cattle are evil to the environment consider Alan Savory’s point that a resource cannot cause environmental degradation.  Rather it is the human management of that resource that causes the impact on the environment, good, bad or does it even matter?

Give us a call if you would like to stop by and see first hand the herd in MOOOO-TION.