HAMILTON, Ohio — Farmers need to keep an armor of forage on soils to protect them, explained Troyce Barnett with the USDA National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), at an Ohio grazing and pasture management workshop.

Dean Houchen, with Pheasants Forever, then talked about weed identification and control.

The workshop, sponsored by the NRCS, Ohio State University extension in Butler County, Butler Soil and Water Conservation District and Pheasants Forever, was at the Ol’ Mac Angus Farm owned by Mike McDonald.

"We’re targeting soil health," Barnett said. "We want to improve the soils by building organic matter, by retaining our nutrients in the soils. We want to improve our soils to hold not only nutrients but also the water, so that the moisture will be available during drought times."

Producers should strive to increase the amount of forage on their land, he said.

The average amount in Ohio is 2.3 tons of forage to the acre, but some farmers have been able to increase that to 8 tons. "If we seed properly, keep 30 percent legumes our field, this will help fix nitrogen in the soil so the grass can take it up and grow with it without having to spend more money on fertilizer. You do want to do soil sampling, you want to amend your soils with fertilizer to fix the problem where you might be weak in certain areas," he said.

Having the correct amount of lime, a compound of calcium, to correct the pH in the soil was one area Barnett suggested targeting. A 500-pound calf will be about 10 percent calcium – that removes a lot of the mineral from the soil.

After lunch Houchen said he had picked out some "heavy hitters" to talk about. First up was Johnson grass – "Johnson grass can lead to cyanide poisoning if that plant has been damaged," he explained.

The big concern in Ohio right now, however, is Palmer amaranth, he said. A couple of plants have been found in the state. It is extremely invasive, especially in row crops. "It can lead to 80, 90 percent yield reduction in corn and soybeans," Houchen added. "It can grow two to three inches a day. A lot of people think that invasive species come from Europe, Asia, South America – but that one is native to the United States."

Houchen suggested all pasture managers need a good weed identification book. Weeds of the Northeast, available online at Amazon, is a good one, he said. Also, by looking up noxious weeds on the internet, a state list of weed species and photos comes up.

In introducing the speakers at the program, John Williams, NRCS district conservationist for Butler and Hamilton counties, said the sponsors thought the workshop would be good for beginning pasture managers – "To help them learn about pasture management, grazing and conservation practices to help them better equip their operations."

McDonald was happy to have the workshop at his farm, a production beef operation. "We raise as many of the calves as we can with the mama cows, and we keep them here on the farm until the day we take them in for slaughter," he said. "We run about 78 mother cows. We calf spring and fall."