By Tony Dean, [email protected]

We all take the sun for granted. If we’re building fence on a hot July day, we try to hide from it. If we are pulling a calf on a cold January morning, we welcome a few rays coming our way. Either way, it’s always there. We can’t live without the sun. We depend on it not only for our lives, but also for our livelihood as ranchers. As part of his gift to us, God gave the process of photosynthesis. This is how grasses grow.

Photosynthesis is the process plants use to sustain themselves. Plants gather water and nutrients from the soil and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Using the sun’s energy, the plant produces oxygen along with energy for growth in the form of sugar.

In managing cattle, the more we understand about the mothering instinct, and the herding instinct, the better job we do in livestock management. A big part of managing our grazing lands is understanding how plants respond to sunlight. Some plants want to maximize their exposure to it, and some prefer a more limited amount. Texas bluegrass has a wide range of sunlight adaptation. Texas bluegrass is a highly palatable native cool season perennial that can grow in open pasture or in shaded areas. When subjected to years of heavy grazing pressure, it decreases in open areas but can maintain a presence in shaded brushy areas not subject to heavy grazing. When we can incorporate well-planned rotation grazing into our management, Texas bluegrass can reappear in open pasture.

To read more, pick up a copy of the July issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.

By Jelly Cocanougher

It starts with absorbing how to drive on old ranch roads. The beat-up pickup that has run a million miles and is somehow still hanging on – almost always with some quirks to it. I remember holding a passenger truck door closed with a rope, checking on pastures. I remember being at a farm auction baffling a half a dozen men starting a raggedy old feed truck with a scrawny wire you had to jiggle. Feet dangling trying to reach the pedals of a sketchy old truck, navigating the dirt roads with a cold Dr. Pepper and chocolate bar.

You inherit your grand daddy’s oversized gloves that are way too big to avoid pinching your fingers. From observing and acquiring the wisdom from delivering babies, mending fences, checking out water gaps, to doctoring and holding the iron that holds your generational brand. Raising the next generation right – in the dirt and absorbing how the world works.

By Jelly Cocanougher

He stands smiling next to a loaded trailer of cattle, a poignant snapshot of ranchers in their day-to-day activities. He is absorbed into the generational rich legacy of agriculturally based professions, with grueling hours that have poured in from the livelihood of this lifestyle.
As the heavy clouds loom in the horizon, he remains unfazed, ready to weather any challenge that comes his way. Fueled by passion and in cadence, information that has been developed from generations before him or us all, we are the backbone of agricultural communities.