As Guthrie County gets greener this spring, some beef producers may still be hesitant to put livestock on pasture ground during the calving season.

The latest Iowa Crop Progress and Condition Report shows that overall, livestock and feedlot conditions have improved, though increased moisture and cold temperatures earlier this spring created health concerns for calves.

Wet ground and a delay in the growing season meant poor pasture and grazing, but ISU Extension Beef Specialist Erika Lundy says rotational grazing can be a solution for some producers, “A lot of our pastures in Adair and Guthrie county are maybe kind of odd shaped just because we’re maybe trying to use areas that we can’t necessarily farm, and still have those be productive and using cattle to graze those. So it gets to be a lot harder, but a lot of times in Extension we want to talk about making sure if we have the capabilities to split our pastures into smaller paddocks. Just so that when we rotationally graze or move those cattle from one paddock to the next that we’re allowing that pasture plants some time to regrow and recover without those animals going back and regrazing them.”

Lundy adds those who may have planted cover crops last fall could be using that land as a break from pasture grazing. She says if conditions are dry enough now farmers can still plant cover crops for spring and summer grazing to let pasture recover.