season change

The first hint of fall here on the prairie came in early August when the heat let up for a bit and the nights got cooler.  I could just about feel the ending of fast growth and the turn toward maturity in the crops and also, of course, the weeds.

Our pastures went dormant in July this year, due again to the heat and lack of moisture.  Now, with the beginning of what we can hope are the fall rains-we have gotten three plus inches in the last two weeks here-hope is rising that we will have good grazing into the fall.

The temperatures are coming back up again which will help the corn mature.  But the lengthening nighttime hours that August brings should moderate this hottest of all summers. 

I am reminded of conversations I had with a grazier some years ago who was beginning to be discouraged by the way in which his cool season grasses too often hardened off in summer while his neighbor's corn maintained its lush green color through the heat. We can learn from this perhaps.  In a sense this is the difference between our cool season pasture grasses and the warm season annual corn.

We tell ourselves European stories.  And it is Americans who bred up corn, while it is Europeans that provided our pasture grasses, such as brome, orchardgrass, fescue and so forth.  The Americans in question are, of course, natives and that is why that particular agronomic history has never been developed.  We have always had extreme difficulty admitting that the native population knew anything, or could do anything useful.  If we will pay attention to American stories, we will find that the natives bred up corn centuries ago, particularly in Central and some of South America as well as the southwestern corner of the USA.  The European pasture grasses are out of context, while corn is in its ancestral home.

Grasses are warm season, such as corn, sudan grass, sorghum, big and little Bluestem and Indian grass, or they are cool season, such as orchard and brome, meaning they grow best in the cooler parts of the growing season. We have a continental climate here in the upper Midwest with extremes of heat in summer and cold in winter and that is why the pasture grasses harden off and become dormant in summer while the warm season grasses such as corn, are just hitting their stride.