Pastures: essential crops

The title of this article again emphasizes the plant species known as grasses and that sometimes they are somewhat deemphasized when we talk about crops of agricultural importance. Since the beginning of livestock farming when it was evident that ruminant animals consumed plant species until today where a great diversity of hybrids have been obtained, pastures have been the most balanced and economical food that cattle can consume, sometimes it seems that in many countries some producers do not fully understand that these plant species need conditions and proper management to provide the necessary plant biomass to meet the requirements of livestock.

As technicians and producers in the livestock and agricultural sector, we must identify what are the weaknesses and potentialities of the natural ecosystem in which we have intervened to produce food, in the specific case of livestock, the first thing a producer must internalize is that before being a farmer he is a farmer because those natural spaces where he manages his animals are cultivated with plant species that require the same handling as any crop such as corn that coincidentally belongs to the grass family (grasses or poacea).

Livestock farming is a very complex activity where several components such as climate, soil, plant, animal intervene and must be managed by man to obtain optimal productive results, to refer to the climate there are climatic elements that interfere with the production of pastures such as temperature, when there are very high temperatures that exceed 35 °C, these plants tend to decrease their photosynthetic process and increase the cell wall, which causes the plant to become less digestible for the animal because its fiber levels are very high, typical of a mature plant.

On the other hand, if we talk about the fertility of the soil we cannot fail to name the amount of organic matter that is generated in the grassland ecosystems first of all by the leaf litter produced from the pastures and the manure that is deposited on these surfaces, in order to take advantage of this organic matter we must guarantee that there is no excessive use of inorganic toxic substances that can reduce the presence of micro, meso and macro soil organisms, since, they are responsible for the decomposition and mineralization of organic matter to make available inorganic nutritional elements that are used by plants.

A fundamental element in these spaces, especially in tropical ecosystems, is nitrogen, which is taken by microorganisms as an energy source to carry out their processes. In the case of tropical ecosystems with hot and humid climates, as is the case in our geographical area, the decomposition of organic matter is accelerated by high temperatures and soil moisture, which is favorable for these organisms. Therefore, maintaining the soil with adequate nitrogen levels can favor the decomposition process of organic matter in the paddocks.

The protagonists in these spaces are the pastures, as for the management of the animals the surfaces are divided to ensure the days of rest of the plant once it is cut by the animal, the amount found on these surfaces must be according to the amount of dry biomass that these plants produce, with this we avoid that the animals make a higher grazing pressure that affects the availability of the pastures in the future, since, these can be progressively degraded when there is overgrazing.

Dear readers, these are some of the aspects that a producer should take into account when managing a livestock farm, because, if we have well-treated pastures, the cost-benefit ratio will increase, because as we mentioned above, grass is a balanced and economical food for ruminants. So, let's start studying these plants with their environment and let's carry out management according to the context and not apply recipes.