By Laura Nelson

Planting a seed may be the ultimate act of faith and hope. Giving it the right conditions to thrive takes action on our part.

Jim Johnson, Noble Research Institute’s senior regenerative ranching advisor, says building the right conditions in your soil will improve the odds of successful germination and growth.

“Building healthy soil is something we work at every day, all year long,” Johnson says.

Whether you’re planting a cover crop for the first time or trying to add diversity to your pastureland, new seeds have the same requirements for a good start: viable seed, good seed-to-soil contact, adequate moisture, proper temperatures and available oxygen.

“Those aren’t necessarily things that you can just take care of the day you decide to go plant,” Johnson says. “They’re soil management actions that we take every day.”

Start with the best seed

Start with high-quality, vigorous seed.

“A vigorous seed is going to be more forgiving if conditions are less than ideal,” Johnson says. A laboratory can run a cold germination test or a stress test to give you a good idea of a seed lot’s viability.

When comparing seed of the same species, look at the number of seeds per pound. If one rye cover crop has 26,000 seeds per pound and another of the same variety has 16,000, the 16,000-seed lot has bigger seeds.

“You want big, plump seeds for that variety, because the bigger and plumper seeds typically have more of the stored energy they need to get started,” he says.

Maximize seed-to-soil contact

A seed has to soak up moisture from the soil to soften and swell for germination. Picture each seed as a cube. Broadcast it on the surface, and only one side touches the soil. Push it down a little, and parts of the other sides touch the dirt around it. Push it down and firmly cover it with soil, and all six sides can make contact, but only if the soil structure is in good condition.

Hard, compacted soil makes it difficult to get seed into the ground and to get the soil to close back around it. Loose, fluffy soil is full of air gaps that prevent seed-to-soil contact. You want to plant into friable soil that crumbles easily when squeezed, about the consistency of cottage cheese or a moist chocolate cake. That gives the seed its best chance.

Ground cover helps build more friable soil, but too much residue can keep seed from reaching the soil. A well-calibrated, well-maintained no-till drill can plant through tons of residue. If you’re broadcasting seed into grass or a crop field with residue, Johnson suggests using livestock to graze off or remove excess cover first. Used correctly, high-density, short-duration grazing can also help tread broadcast seed into the soil.

If livestock aren’t an option, consider another limited, well-timed disturbance to get the seed in touch with the soil. A quick pass with a disc to chop residue while incorporating the seed, or burning residue just before seeding, can give new plants a fresh start.

Adequate moisture matters

Seed-to-soil contact only works if the soil holds enough moisture to reach the seed. In general, a seed needs at least a quarter inch of precipitation to germinate, plus another quarter to half inch for the plant to establish.

A good, well-timed rain is the quickest path to success, but encouraging diverse root systems over the long term builds a moist, fertile environment.

“We always have to be thinking about how we can set the soil up to absorb and hold water,” Johnson says. Heavier residue helps hold moisture and protects the surface from evaporation, and living roots open pore space so water can find its way in.

Healthy soil that holds moisture helps insulate a seed waiting for rain. If you see noticeable erosion on your land, your water cycle is broken. Keep the ground covered to slow water down and help it soak in.

Keep the temperature right

Many seeds tolerate soil temperatures from just above freezing into the low 100s, but the ideal range for germination is typically 65 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. You’ll want to be confident soil temperatures will stay in the right range for that seed for at least three days in a row, and ideally five. A forecast showing a favorable trend can work, too.

“If we’re planting a cool season crop in the fall, we might be able to plant into soil we know is too hot to germinate,” Johnson says. “But if the days are getting shorter and cooler, and we have a little rain in the immediate forecast, we’re trending in the right direction.”

Timing always matters, but your temperature window widens as your soil health improves.

“We know we can plant earlier or later if we have good, healthy soil,” he says. Healthy, covered, root-filled soil holds a steadier temperature regardless of the air temperature.

Give it room to breathe

Waterlogged or compacted soils starve seeds of the oxygen they need. A heavy rain may soak a seed and trigger germination, but the seed will drown if it sits underwater for more than a couple of days.

One problem often leads to another. Wet soils compact easily, so keep animals and machinery off waterlogged ground, especially before planting. The right amount of ground cover will also soften the effects of compaction.

To show how much ground cover reduces compaction, Johnson often lays his hand on the ground during Noble’s Land Essentials course and invites the biggest student in the class to stand on it. First, though, he gathers plant residue and litter and covers his hand.

“It’s a pretty powerful demonstration when they can stand on my hand, and I hardly feel it,” Johnson says. “That’s how big a cushion residue makes for our soil surface.”

Preventing compaction, building organic matter and improving water absorption also help keep the soil surface from crusting over a seed, another obstacle to a good stand.

“All these things matter and make a difference in your seed germination,” Johnson says. “Healthy soil with good soil structure is easier to plant into, easier to get all the conditions your seed needs to germinate and establish, and easier to get a good stand in.”

Unpredictable weather can still wreck the best-laid plans, but good soil conditions give your seeds their best chance whether you drill or broadcast your new forage crop.

By Savannah Magoteaux

Walk across a pasture in a bad grasshopper year, and you’ll hear them before you see them. Hundreds of insects scatter with every step, springing out of the grass in all directions. A few grasshoppers are a normal part of the landscape, but a population explosion can frustrate farmers, ranchers and homeowners alike.

Grasshoppers can eat tremendous amounts of vegetation. They strip forage from pastures, damage gardens, defoliate young trees and feed on many row crops. In drought years, when forage is already short, heavy grasshopper pressure makes a hard situation worse.

You can reduce the damage. The challenge is knowing when control will work and when it is too late to make much difference.

Why are there so many this year?

Grasshopper numbers rise and fall from year to year, and weather plays a major role in whether they stay manageable or explode.

Warm, dry springs generally favor grasshopper survival. Females lay egg pods in undisturbed soil during late summer and fall. Those eggs stay in the ground through winter and hatch the following spring.

If the winter is mild and the spring stays dry, more young grasshoppers survive. Dry weather also suppresses many of the fungal diseases that normally help keep grasshopper numbers down.

By summer, millions of young insects may already be feeding across rangeland and pastures.

Timing is everything

One of the biggest mistakes landowners make is waiting until grasshoppers have fully developed wings before deciding to act.

Young grasshoppers, called nymphs, are much easier to control. They stay concentrated near where they hatched, can’t fly long distances and take much less insecticide if treatment becomes necessary.

Once they become winged adults, the picture changes. Adult grasshoppers move easily and can fly into treated areas from neighboring fields. Even if a treatment knocks down the local population, new insects may keep arriving all summer.

That is why many Extension specialists stress early monitoring instead of waiting until the damage is obvious.

How much damage can they cause?

Grasshoppers feed on hundreds of plant species. In pastures, they eat grass your livestock would otherwise graze. During severe outbreaks, they may also feed on broadleaf plants, garden vegetables, flowers and young shrubs.

In drought years, the damage shows even more because forage is already stressed. Grasshoppers often gather along field edges first, then move deeper into pastures as food runs short.

Young trees can suffer, too. Newly planted windbreaks, fruit trees and ornamental trees may lose a lot of foliage when grasshopper numbers are high.

What can you do?

No single solution eliminates grasshoppers, but several practices can reduce the damage.

Start with regular scouting. Walking fields every week in late spring and early summer lets you spot rising populations before serious feeding begins.

Good pasture management helps, too. Healthy, vigorous forage generally holds up to feeding better than drought-stressed or overgrazed pasture. Avoiding overgrazing leaves plants more leaf area to recover after insects feed.

Around gardens and homes, mowing tall weeds and unmanaged vegetation can reduce the places where grasshoppers feed and reproduce. It won’t stop an outbreak, but it can make your property less attractive to them.

Natural predators pitch in. Birds, wild turkeys, guineas, chickens, spiders, robber flies and praying mantises all eat grasshoppers. They rarely provide full control in outbreak years, but they help keep numbers lower in normal seasons.

Insecticides can work, but don’t treat them as an automatic solution. Treatment generally works best while most grasshoppers are still immature nymphs. By the time adults are flying, you may need repeated applications because new insects keep moving into treated areas.

Whether treatment pays often depends on how heavy the infestation is and how valuable the crop or pasture is. Extension recommendations commonly use population thresholds to help decide whether control is economically justified, rather than treating every field just because grasshoppers are present.

If you use insecticides, choose products labeled for the site, and follow all label directions on application rates, grazing restrictions and environmental precautions.

Once adult females start laying eggs in late summer, there is little you can do. Those eggs stay in the soil until spring, so early monitoring the next year matters even more after a big outbreak.

Grasshopper populations rarely stay at outbreak levels forever. Weather, predators, disease and natural cycles eventually bring numbers back down. In years that favor grasshoppers, though, producers who scout early and respond quickly usually fare far better than those who wait until the pasture appears to be moving.

No one can eliminate grasshoppers from the landscape, and no one should try. They are a natural part of the ecosystem and an important food source for many wildlife species. The goal is to hold damage to an acceptable level while protecting the long-term health of your pastures, crops and beneficial insects.

By the time grasshoppers are flying up with every step you take through the pasture, much of the damage is already done. The best defense starts weeks earlier, while the insects are young, populations are easier to manage and you have more options.

By Tony Dean, tonydean.tx1@gmail.com

Who qualifies as your neighbor? Webster says it is someone who lives nearby, but it isn’t always that simple. Is my neighbor the person next door, or someone in the next county? It could be both.

Our neighbors are an important part of life on the ranch and the grazing lands we share. Many of us find comfort in knowing another human being is somewhere in our neck of the woods, and that someone nearby cares what happens to us.

Being a good neighbor is part of being a productive and responsible rancher, so let’s look at some of the qualities that make a good one.

Protect your neighbor

Watch out for him.

The cattle business is dangerous. Almost everything we work with is bigger and faster than we are. A mad cow can turn an otherwise wonderful day into a disaster. Sooner or later, all of us will need some help.

The average age of today’s rancher keeps climbing. Be aware of your neighbors’ ages, limitations or disabilities, and keep an eye out for anything outside their normal routine.

More women own and operate ranches today, too. Some may suddenly find themselves responsible for parts of the operation that a spouse or family member used to handle. As neighbors, we can be a valuable backup system, helping one another learn, adjust and keep the operation moving.

And then there is wildfire. It can be on us in minutes. You may need to help move a family down the road to safety or move livestock out of harm’s way. Have a plan in mind before the emergency happens.

Be a friend

Some of us who live in the country drive to town for work or make regular trips for other reasons. Others are stay-at-home ranchers, and life can get a little lonely. A friendly smile, a phone call or an invitation to lunch can mean more than we realize.

Things aren’t always wine and roses at the ranch. Few occupations ask people to juggle such a mix of complex markets, weather, natural resource management, livestock management and countless other issues.

Spirits can get low. If we are listening, we can hear and feel the stress in someone’s life. On those days, you have a chance to be a special kind of friend.

Help your neighbor

Have you ever tried to load a trailer by yourself and needed someone to stand in the gate for a couple of minutes? All of us will need help at some point, and our neighbors should be among the people we can call.

Do your best to be there when needed, and your neighbors will likely be there when it is your turn to ask. Sometimes it will be a small job. Other times, it will be a big one. It doesn’t matter. We help our neighbors.

It’s also smart to make sure someone nearby knows your ranching program and understands the land you use. At some point, one of you may need to take care of business for the other for several days.

Be cooperative

There is no end to the situations that can involve more than one family. Fencing, road maintenance and livestock getting where they don’t belong are common ones.

If you don’t handle these things with a friendly, cooperative attitude, they can create problems between neighbors that last for years.

Good fences are something to be proud of. Nothing is gained by years of bickering. Reaching an agreement may be hard at times, but neighbors should be able to work things out. Clear your head, use common sense and come up with an answer everyone can live with.

If your cattle get mixed up with your neighbor’s, make it a priority to separate them as soon as possible. It is rude to let your cattle stay in your neighbor’s pasture eating his grass while you do nothing about it.

One good way to handle strays is for the rancher whose pasture they are in to pen his own cattle along with the strays. The other rancher can then load his cattle and take them home. Afterward, both ranchers can work together on any fence repairs.

By the way, a gate between neighbors is almost always a good policy.

Take ownership

The only way to avoid mistakes is to do nothing. But it isn’t in us as ranchers to sit around and watch the world go by. We are men and women of action, so things are going to go sideways from time to time.

When that happens, and it will, own your mistakes. Decisive action can prevent misunderstandings and make a problem go away much faster.

Be honest, and never, ever lie.

Be patient

We all have bad days. When your neighbor is a little grouchy, he or she probably has something weighing on them.

That is a chance to be a good neighbor. Be patient. Be a good listener. Help your neighbor through the turmoil if you can.

Respect property boundaries

Trespassing is wrong, illegal and rude. Never do it except in an emergency.

In the Southwest, where we live, land ownership is considered a sacred right, and it is a right available to anyone. With ownership comes an expectation of privacy and respect. When you trespass, you violate those rights.

And yes, it is trespassing when you cross a fence to fish or hunt without permission. Texas is a private-property state, which makes respecting these boundaries especially important.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have an understanding with your neighbors that lets you onto their land. Many good friends and neighbors work together on one another’s ranches, but both parties should always communicate well.

You have a cell phone. Use it any time you doubt whether you have the right to go through the gate. An invitation onto another person’s ranch is a privilege, so don’t abuse it.

Your word

Your word as a rancher, neighbor, man or woman helps define you in your community and throughout your life. Your neighbors want to trust you. They want to know that all they need from you is a handshake and that they can depend on what you say.

It is a blessing to live in North Texas, where people still respect and honor a life lived with truth and love.

A good life to live

Having good neighbors is a great way to live. It brings comfort and enjoyment to life. Sometimes it takes a little extra effort, but a friendly neighborhood, even one that covers many acres, is enjoyable and can help keep all of us safer.

It is worth the effort.

The Bible

The Bible has many references to being a good neighbor. Being a good neighbor was good judgment 2,000 years ago, and it is good judgment today. Jesus made it clear that love should guide a good neighbor.

Leviticus 19:18 tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That is a tall order. In Matthew 5:44, Jesus takes it further, telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Our goal should always be to love one another, lift each other up, and help and protect our neighbors.

All of us face drought, floods, wildfire, tornadoes, low cattle prices, rattlesnakes and feral hogs, so let’s fight the fight together. Stand by your neighbor’s side, and he will stand by yours.

A North Texas minister was recently asked, “What do you do if you have a neighbor who is really hard to love?”

His answer was short and to the point: “Love him anyway.”