Sheep - A Sericea Solution? Research at Kansas State University has found that sheep will voluntarily graze, and therefore could help sustainably control the noxious weed sericea lespedeza in parts of Kansas and neighboring states. A costly situation in the Kansas Flint Hills could become a scenario for profit, but it would require beef and sheep producers to work together to sustainably manage a noxious weed problem plaguing the area. Grazing sheep in the late season, between August and October, could be a cost-effective way to help control the spread of sericea lespedeza in parts of Kansas and neighboring states. In the past, it has taken costly herbicide application to get rid of sericea, which is a tannin-rich perennial legume. The latest research that examines ways to control sericea in Kansas grasslands involves two cost-effective grazing approaches: supplementing grazing cows with a corn steep liquor byproduct to prompt them to eat sericea and using sheep as clean up grazers on sericea once stocker cattle are removed from pastures mid-summer. To cut down on costs, KC Olson, a beef cattle scientist for K-State Research and Extension, has aimed to provide more grazing pressure on the plant. When a plant has been grazed, the rules of nature dictate that the plant directs its nutritional resources away from seed production and toward restoration of leaf area, Olson said. That would be a small way we could cut into the reproductive capacity of that plant and get some control over it. A video about controlling sericea lespedeza is available at youtube/watch?v=l5d_jRHaSyE.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 19:07:15 +0000
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