Many producers throughout the country keep enduring tough weather conditions.

In the last five years, the region has experienced five different records or near-records for the last 40 years.

We have faced the driest, the wettest and the warmest fall, the coldest spring and the most extreme winter-spring temperature changes.

Pasture systems support their own unique plant and animal species. The need to control weeds in pastures and reduce herbicide and mowing cost to control undesirable species has increased due to higher fuel and chemical prices.

Multi-species grazing is the practice of grazing more than one kind of livestock (cattle, sheep and/or goats and horses) in a diverse pasture or land, not necessarily at the same time but within the same grazing season.

This practice has the benefits of promoting more uniform grazing of weeds and forbs, increasing pasture productivity, reducing fuel loads of unwanted vegetation and perhaps reducing predation losses.

A long-term study verifies multi-paddock grazing improves vegetation, soil health and animal production relative to continuous grazing in large-scale ranches, according to Texas AgriLife Research scientists.

The study measured the impacts on vegetation and soils achieved by commercial ranchers who adapted management practices in response to changing circumstances to achieve desirable outcomes, said Dr. Richard Teague, AgriLife Research rangeland ecology and management scientist in Vernon.

Warm-season forages are a good option for summer forage production to fill in the summer slump of cool-season pastures and to extend the grazing season into fall and winter.

Warm-season forages also may fit comfortably in crop rotations, especially in years when irrigation water is in short supply, and provide a good forage source while rotating out of perennial forages.

Annual forages can also be used as “double crops,” either for harvesting or direct consumption by livestock to extend the grazing season.