“Beef up” your permanent pastures

 Byron Seeds  has introduced new mixes, designed with the seed varieties that are best able to secure rooting when interseeded into existing pastures, and that will improve both the quantity and the nutrient content of pasture when grazed.

This series is called “Diversity” and includes:

Renovator.     Multi-species mix, designed for new seedings or adding diversity to an existing pasture.    Tall fescue, meadow fescue, ryegrass, orchardgrass, timothy, festulolium…    50-lb bags, $205 per bag, seed 20 to 30 pounds per acre.
Diversifier.     All legume species mix, can be broadcast in season.   It has red & white clover, crimson clover, alsike clover, alfalfa, and birdsfoot trefoil.    50-lb bags, $280/ bag, seed 5 to 8 lbs per acre into existing pastures than are thinning.

When  is  a  “heritage  breed”  the  better  option?

ALBC (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy) defines a “heritage” breed as one with a critical population size.    However, when random DNA tests show 70% of all beef-type slaughter cattle have some Angus in them, while 95% of all dairy-cross  beef has some Holstein in them, it can seem as if all breeds other than Angus (and Holstein) may as well be viewed as in the “heritage” category.

Are you one of the many customers we have who are pursuing a non-black origin breed for replacement breeding or beef marketing purposes, or intentionally use  crossbred “club calf” bulls to produce showable steers?    Have you chosen direct to consumer marketing, of package beef or freezer beef?    You are on the “road less travelled”, and as Robert Frost said in this historic poem, it can make all the difference…

The Angus breeding population may be the largest of all cattle breeds on the earth and with global distribution, a pretty healthy diversity of bloodlines still exists.   In the world of EPDs, of course, genetic “ranking” (now with Genomic enhancement) concentrates sire demand around the trait leaders.     The breeder wishing to get noticed in Angus, either spends the most money to “buy into the clique”, OR-- sets out to breed “fixers” to the common breed problems.   

I have noted that in grazing publications the “Pinebank” herd has a strong “rep”.   This is a New Zealand, grass-based Angus breeding operation in which cows must walk great distances daily to gather grass for calf milk or weight gain.    More and more you hear of issues with “feet” in the Angus breed--, of pasture bulls getting lame in breeding season, for example.     Many breeders have gone to Pinebank for cattle with foot integrity.     Bill Hodge of Sustainable Genetics who is based in Carrollton, GA is an example of those who imported embryos from Pinebank.

We currently offer semen on HAR Pinebank 708 211, one of the Sustainable bull offerings.    He was born in the USA from imported “Pinebank” ancestry.

Murray Grey

This growing breed is the result of the repeated cross of a white Shorthorn bull on an Angus cow (named for the Murray river in Australia, where these matings took place).    The breed, which has a silver-grey hair color, has a perfect “freezer beef” carcass size and some bloodlines will “finish” on grass!