Elsevier

Rangelands

Volume 37, Issue 3, June 2015, Pages 119-124
Rangelands

Seasonal Weather-Related Decision Making for Cattle Production in the Northern Great Plains

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2015.03.003Get rights and content

On the Ground

  • Ranching is a challenging and sometimes risky business, with cattle production (and associated enterprise income) largely being dependent on seasonal weather patterns and corresponding forage production. To help reduce this risk, the USDA–Agricultural Research Service performed a multistate study of seasonal weather effects on cattle production across the Northern Great Plains (Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana).

  • Cool, wet springs and longer, cooler growing seasons increased cattle production across the Northern Great Plains. Knowledge of these seasonal weather influences on cattle production is important for management decision making, but practical application of this knowledge remains problematic.

  • Increased enterprise flexibility to deal with variable forage production can be achieved by using seasonal weather forecasts, as well as reducing base cow-calf herd numbers to less than 100% of typical ranch carrying capacity. Yearlings or seasonal contract grazing can then be used to increase grazing to use additional forage in good years.

  • Recently launched USDA Regional Climate Hubs will deliver science-based knowledge, practical information, management and conservation strategies, and decision tools to ranchers that will help them adapt to weather variability and changing climatic conditions.

Section snippets

Project Overview

Seasonal weather forecasts, such as the 1-month and 3-month outlooks available from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Centeri can be used in decision support tools to assist ranchers with decision making.5 To align with these free and easily accessible forecasts that are available up to 1 year in advance, we examined our datasets for effects of seasonal weather

How Does Seasonal Weather Influence Cattle Production in the Northern Great Plains?

Cool, wet springs7, 8, 9 and longer, cooler growing seasons10 resulted in increased cattle production across the Northern Great Plains. For ranchers, knowledge of such seasonal weather influences on cattle production is important for management decision making, but practical application of this knowledge remains somewhat problematic. For example, spring precipitation is highly erratic in the Northern Great Plains (Fig. 2), and the forecasts of spring seasonal precipitation from the National

Lessons Learned: Management Strategies for Ranchers

Most ranching operations in the Northern Great Plains are cow-calf enterprises.2 However, in many cow–calf operations, logistical constraints can make it difficult to be flexible and adaptively manage grazing for the highly variable seasonal weather patterns and forage production. For example, genetic considerations of the herd can preclude quickly reducing herd numbers at the onset of dry/drought conditions. Ranchers can avoid such constraints and achieve higher economic returns and stability

Future of Cattle Production in the Northern Great Plains

Although many negative effects are predicted for most rangelands in the United States related to climate change,15, 16 the Northern Plains region is predicted to potentially benefit. For example, spring and winter precipitation is expected to increase in the Northern Great Plains, which is anticipated to increase forage and therefore livestock production.15 However, anticipated warmer spring temperatures15, 16 may offset some of this potential production increase. Regardless, the possible net

New Resource for Enhancing Climate-Smart Decision Making by Ranchers

The USDA has recently launched Regional Climate Hubsii to deliver science-based knowledge, practical information, management/conservation strategies, and decision tools such as the USDA–Natural Resources Conservation Service Drought Calculator to ranchers that may help them adapt to weather variability and changing climatic conditions. The USDA Northern Plains Regional Climate Hubiii

New Technological Resources for Enhancing Decision Making by Ranchers

Remote sensing is a recently established technological advancement that can enhance weather-related decision making by estimating forage production from satellite imagery. However, prior remote sensing efforts to estimate forage production were at spatial scales too large for ranch- or pasture-level decision making. This is beginning to change, however, as recent developments have allowed for usable ranch-scale forage production estimates.18 For instance, research in Mandan, North Dakota,

Conclusions

Ranching is a challenging and sometimes risky business, in part because highly variable seasonal weather patterns from year to year can cause rapid swings between boom and bust forage production. To effectively manage for such weather and forage variability, a better understanding of weather effects on cattle production is needed. Scientists with the USDA-ARS have begun to decipher these relationships using historical long-term datasets from the Northern Great Plains. Armed with the resulting

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