The first release of this podcast was set to coincide with the spring thaw and the green-up of cool season grasses and forbs. One of the biggest threats to South Dakota rangeland is the increasing prevalence of three cool season invasive species, namely smooth brome, Kentucky bluegrass and crested wheatgrass.

Please also see below Justin’s correspondence post interview of things he wishes he’s emphasized more.

Our oft-repeated mantra of rotate-rest-recover and our regenerative instinct for minimal disturbance were challenged by what we saw and hear on the ground when we met with Justin Thompson, rancher near Mobridge, South Dakota. Don’t get me wrong. Rotate-rest-recover and minimum disturbance principles really work to repair the land when it is bare or overgrazed. But what happens after you do everything right, rotate, and rest and really allow your pastures to recover? “Doing everything right.” Within a few years, you find that your pastures are overrun with thick layers of Kentucky bluegrass thatch that choke out the native western wheatgrass in the cool season and your big and little bluestem (amongst others in the warm season).

What do you do?

We visited with Justin Thompson to discuss this very issue. Justin is an avid rancher, loves the land and the cattle and has been to grazing schools, learning as much as he could. Yet after heavy snow years in 2018 and 2019, Justin found that in a few short years, Kentucky bluegrass and crested wheatgrass had invaded this land. Justin is an astute observer and keeps meticulous photographic records from monitoring points, so he can pinpoint these times. What to do?

Justin walks us through four observations he made on his land where there was unusual disturbance, one by the power company and the rest by heavy hoof traffic. The results were remarkable in that western wheatgrass was able to express itself again. The podcast discusses these scenarios and how Justin intends to use adaptive grazing principles to address this pervasive issue. To add to the layers, the farm that Justin occupies is in heavy clay gumbo land and the cool season invasive problem is much more pronounced than another ranch he runs 20 miles down the road, but where less clayey soils are present.

This is Justin’s story of adaptive grazing, some of the many practical struggles he has and yet reflects his deep commitment to right management; there are no silver bullets, but there is much to learn from Justin’s philosophy and practice – we are also joined by Emily Helms, state rangeland management specialist for South Dakota, and Ryan Beer, rangeland management specialist out of Bison, SD, who provide us with their very valuable perspectives.

From Justin’s e-mails subsequent to the interview:

“I do wish I had specified that the sandier soils of our first ranch, have benefited from take half-leave half. Truly nearly all NRCS practices have worked on that ranch!!

The ranches are 20 miles apart with completely different set of issues. The sandy soiled ranch has water table at 120 feet and springs that flow 9 months outta the year. The home ranch has very little water as one example. Another example would be free choice salt. The west ranch I go through 5 to 6 ton of white salt a year, at home one half a ton. I use a custom mineral with grass clippings, water samples, and liver biopsies.”

“Another idea I had since we last talked and I will ask Ryan next time I see him. Maybe...You take half - leave half, once over rotation, rest, etc. IF, your annual production is 2200 pounds per acre or less. (Which is about what our west ranch is)If your annual production is 2250 pounds or more you only leave 1000 pounds. I have measured 4300 pounds before. Usually, it is around 3200 pounds.”

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

Successful farming Article on Boom or Bust (please note we don’t necessarily endorse this method, but there are take-homes that we believe are useful):

https://www.agriculture.com/livestock/cattle/build-drought-resistant-soil-via-boom-bust-grazing

Workshop on Cool-Season Invasive Species in the Northern Great plains (note, while the hyperlinks to the full papers no longer work, the abstracts are useful. Note we don’t necessarily endorse every practice, but want to share this with the idea that the abstracts provide useful education and reflect more recent thoughts on cool-season invasives)

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/CoolSeasonGrass2014_10.pdf