Russell County is a major beef producing county, with approximately 35,000 head of cattle and calves.  The vast majority of the operations in the county are cow calf based, with pasture as the main source of nutrition.  Most of the fields in the county are used for hay in the spring and pasture in the summer and fall months.  Unfortunately most of the pastures are not utilized properly and fertility can sometimes be an issue with the rising prices of fertilizers.

This past summer and fall, after working with a local producer who has a 50 cow herd cow/calf operation, the Russell County ANR agent was able to help this producer implement a pasture rotation program and reduce the amount of supplemental feed and hay on his farm by about 25%.  Each year the producer would run low of pasture in late October/early November and have to begin supplementing grass hay and feed, but by implementing a new fertility management plan, and rotational grazing he has reduced the amount of supplementation needed early, and extended his grazing season.  The farm now has 5 pastures, instead of one with a second field that cattle were off of for the spring for hay, and the utilization of grass has increased in each field.

On this farm, the producer has now began to unroll hay daily and in turn, is spreading out nutrients via the cattle on his pasture fields in the winter.  This has reduced cost for fertilizer needed and reduces the amount of damage to one area of the farm and the need to spread manure.  Also the producer has implemented a reseeding program to increase pasture/hay field production as well as doing yearly soil samples to monitor the fertility of fields, so as to be able to monitor the amount of return on rotation of pastures and nutrient distribution.