Ranch manager Augie Mendietta was modest, but pleased, when visitors noted the
substantial grass cover of South Creek Ranch last fall.

At Ferris, a few miles south of Dallas, only 3 inches of rain fell on the ranch through the summer. That moisture was subjected to 74 days of 100-degree temperatures, low humidity and continual winds. Across the state, pastures with some grass volume and
any hint of green were unusual by October.

But the ranch's admiring visitors through the year included cow buyers and cattle
truckers. By fall, Mendietta managed about half the 1,500 cows he started the year with on the ranch's 6,000 acres.

"In every herd, you have some cattle you don't like. So you cull and go through them again," Mendietta says philosophically. "In a bad drought, you can get real picky.

"I guarantee, when this drought is over, we'll have nothing but quality."

Tough decisions

Mendietta hated to sell cows — they're all tagged and performance-tracked. His ranch crew tags each calf with an electronic ear tag, so he has age and source verification and can track vaccinations and carcass performance.

But his alternatives seemed to be to try feed through the drought or overgraze pastures, or both. Neither was viable in his mind. Ranch owners W. Ray and Bea Wallace agreed with their longtime ranch manager. So some cows left, and the King Ranch-raised cowboy managed the grazing that remained.

But, then, that's what he's about.

"We work real hard to maintain our grasses, and drought is what you're managing for," Mendietta says. "If you deplete everything, it will take 5 to 8 years to get it back like it was."

The resource

About 40 percent of South Creek Ranch pastures are bermudagrass
or mixes with bermudagrass. The rest of the pastures are native grasses — many Mendietta planted — of big bluestem, little bluestem, indiangrass, Blackwell and Alamo switchgrass, Haskell sideoats grama and buffalograss.

Mendietta has integrated WWB Dahl old world bluestem as part of the mix in some pastures, and he manages a 260-acre pure stand of eastern gamagrass.

"It grows to 30 inches and it's all leaf," he says. "We don't graze it below 10 inches, and we try to move off at 15 inches.

Mendietta even planted fescue, a cool-season grass, into some bermudagrass pastures on the ranch. That, along with volunteer ryegrass, helps provide green winter grazing.

"I like a pasture that has more than 1 grass, so as 1 is dying down, another is coming up," Mendietta explains. "We grow grass all year long so we can graze all year long."

Grazing management

A staunch believer in rotational grazing, Mendietta keeps South Creek's cattle divided into herds of 150 to 180 cows each. Those herds typically rotate through 100-acre pastures in 5 or 6 days. "Sometimes as long as 12 days," he says. "They mow a pasture down and go to the next."

Before fall, Mendietta pulls cattle from the native pastures to allow grasses to build root reserves, mature and grow a standing hay crop. When bermudagrass is gone after frost, he'll use the dormant natives for about 45 days. Then the cattle go to the ryegrass and fescue.

The cool season grasses carry the herd through spring. By late spring, Mendietta usually has more than enough forage.

"At that time, I don't have enough cattle to graze it down, so we get off the bottoms and bale hay," he says

But Mendietta insists hay feeding is strictly "Plan B" — for emergencies only. "I do not feed hay in the winter," he says. "It's labor-intensive, time consuming and expensive. Our native grasses are standing hay."

Pasture inputs

South Creek Ranch does not fertilize pastures, even where Mendietta takes a hay crop. He depends on the nutrient recycling from intensive grazing.

So beyond management and fencing, about the only input South Creek Ranch has in pasture is weed and brush control. Without that, Mendietta says, moisture and soil nutrients go to waste.

"We spray every pasture that has weeds," he says. "One broadleaf weed can take the place of 5 grass plants."

Mendietta wants pastures sprayed by late April or early May. In recent years, he's used custom applicator Walter Prentice of Prentice Aviation, Bokchito, Okla. In 2011, they targeted milkweed and snow-on-the-mountain with Chaparral™ herbicide.

"Everything else has been taken care of by Grazon® P+D [herbicide] over the years," Mendietta says. "But those 2 weeds could take us over."

Why Chaparral

Prentice prefers Chaparral, at the recommended rate of 2.5 ounces per acre, for 2 reasons. It was the best choice for the target species, and it's nonvolatile — it contains no 2,4-D. South Creek Ranch borders the city limits and other housing is nearby.

"So Chaparral was perfect," Mendietta says. "But the application is just as important. It's applied by helicopter at the time I need it."

Mendietta estimates his broadleaf control at 90 percent. What surprised him, though, was the effect on mesquite sprouts. It appears to have killed many. At least they remained defoliated until fall.

"On this hilltop, we've gone from 14 seedlings to 4 live ones," he points out.

That will save some hand treatment later, he says. A few times a year, Mendietta organizes his ranch crew on a Saturday to walk pastures in swaths, cut mesquite sprouts and treat the stumps with a mixture of Remedy® Ultra herbicide and diesel.

"That's helped a bunch. We've killed a lot of saplings that way," he says.

"And the employees kind of like it, because it gives them a chance to talk to each other. We'll do a barbeque lunch and work until 3 p.m. We're like a family here, and we all take pride in this ranch."

Label precautions apply to forage treated with Chaparral and to manure from animals that have consumed treated forage within the last 3 days. Consult the label for full details. ®™Trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. Grazon P+D is a federally Restricted Use Pesticide. Chaparral is not registered for sale or purchase in all states. Contact your state pesticide regulatory agency to determine if a product is registered for sale or use in your state. Always read and follow label directions.