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The presence of native grasses in a plant community is a good indicator that the pasture has not been overutilized and that the ecosystem is functioning properly. But what if you or your neighbor has decided to leave native grasses standing over the winter? Do these dry, native grass stands present an unnecessary fire hazard?

High fertilizer prices, the aesthetics of a rangeland prairie setting versus a monoculture forage base, and advantageous government cost-share programs have led to many acres being planted to native grass or rangeland over the past five to 10 years. Fall is a good time to look further into the pros and cons of this practice to prepare for the spring growing season.

Quality deer habitat includes a mixture of trees, shrubs, vines, forbs, grasses and other plants such as fungi and sedges. Certain plants within each of these categories benefit deer more than others.

This article will focus on increasing harvest efficiency on rangelands or native grass communities. Harvest efficiency is the percentage of forage grown in a year or growing season that is actually consumed by livestock.

If you have bobwhites calling your native pastures home, you probably have more grass than the neighbors. Bobwhites can be a good indicator of grazing management on native pastures.

Be flexible, proactive and have a mindset of year-long forage flow in addition to seasonal grazing.

The growing season of 2007 brought much needed range recovery in many areas of the country. To characterize the improvement of some rangeland from poor to very good within a single growing season would be an understatement in many cases. The amount and timing of the rainfall in 2007 was very unusual and very infrequent for most areas.

Native grass plantings are of increased interest to producers. The pros relative to introduced perennial pasture grasses are noteworthy.

Those of us who planted winter pasture this September are enjoying excellent pasture conditions with stocking rates of 400-600 pounds of beef per acre. This is likely the best fall you have seen since 1994.

So far 2012 has been a better year climate-wise than 2011. However, the full impact of the 2011 drought on warm-season forages was not fully realized until the early spring and summer of 2012.