Kevin Sedivec

Hi my name is Kevin Sedivec. I'm the Extension range land specialist from North Dakota State University. Today one of the topics we are going to cover at the Central Grass Lands tour, is drought management. Now, most of you are thinking it is a little wet this year, so why are we talking about drought. In 2002, the northern great plains was unfortunate to be hit by a drought, basically a very dry year. We came into this spring from a drought period and we were kind of worried about the production, and trying to get more growth out of these grasses. Your thinking with the moisture that we had this year, are we going to be ok? If you look at a lot of our pastures, they look lush and green, and they do look green, but we are lacking some sub soil in here, so what we want you to think about when it comes to management is never think about a one year hit when you got moisture as your key issue. Try to think of a long term grazing management strategy to maximize your growth, or make it more efficient for long term management. So even though we are not in a drought right now, we want you to think about next year, and the years on of putting together a grazing system. If you look at a grass like western wheat grass, last year we produced about half the tonnage of this grass because of our dry period. In 2003 we are fortunate to have moisture, so what you should do this year is really try to put together a good grazing program that will enhance your grass growth. We want to remember, if your grass is healthy, a one year drought will not affect you. If you have some carry over, and you have some litter built up in your pastures, your going to be in much better shape in the long run. So, I want you to think about with the drought situation, is think about the long term response, put together a good grazing program that will give you some litter, give you a very healthy grass stand, and droughts will really minimize your impact on your resource and your management strategy, so think about that in the future. Don't think about the one year hits of moisture and dry, think about management for the future.