A Menifee County yak producer contacted their UK County Extension Agent for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mary McCarty about a pasture problem - their livestock were not grazing tall fescue. As a result of this contact, McCarty engaged specialists from the UK College of Agriculture's Plant and Soil Science Department to address the problem. Over the course of the two year collaboration (2017-2019), the producer along with UK established an on-farm, replicated, grazing preference demonstration. Common varieties of the major cool season grasses were established during the spring of 2018 and grazed by yak. Also during late summer 2019, pastures were tested for the endophyte presence and toxicity. Pastures were observed to be nearly 100 percent infected and highly toxic. 

Observations in the grazing preference study led the producer to renovate pastures with endophyte-free tall fescue and crabgrass. This project is ongoing.