NO ABSOLUTES is Larry White's absolute rule on range management. Speaking to a group in New Mexico recently, the Texas range specialist avowed that stocking rate plans are "always wrong" because they're always developed under conditions different from those in which they must be implemented.

Specialist Has No Cut, Dried
Formula For Rangelands In NM

By David Bowser

KINGSTON, N.M. — Larry White uses an Ace Reid cartoon to paint the picture.

Reid's venerable cowboy, Jake, explains to his banker, "Sir, you're only out of patience. I'm out of feed, out of water and out of money."

"We have to be good stewards of all of our resources," says Dr. Larry White of Texas A&M University, "because that's all we have to work with."

In Southwestern New Mexico at the invitation of the U.S. Forest Service, White toured a Forest Service grazing allotment and talked to government land managers, environmentalists and permittees.

If the Forest Service expected White to give them firm answers on stocking rates, they were disappointed. He espoused a philosophy of guidelines, explaining that guidelines allow for flexibility and each situation is different. One size does not fit all, and allowances must be made for changes in terrain, weather and economic status. He warned that long-range plans written in stone can be a recipe for disaster.

White said that in his opinion, ranching success depends upon the ability of the management to select the right things to do and then make the appropriate adjustments as the strengths and opportunities occur.

On public lands, White conceded, sometimes there are competing priorities.

"You can't just do an annual plan and expect it to work," he said. "An annual plan is a guideline."

White said he rarely gives absolute instructions. He offers only guidance, because each operation is different and requires different actions. Those actions, too, may vary with weather patterns, financial obligations or terrain.

The Texas A&M professor said his guidance is designed to get managers to think and look at their operations and realize certain actions can increase the risk to the environment or the livestock or finance position.

"Or even your own health, when you can't sleep at night because you've got ulcers," White quipped.

He said property owners and managers have responsibility for the stewardship of their resources and to their neighbors.

"We've always had that," White pointed out.

Stocking rate decisions have always been recognized as a major factor that affects both the range resource and financial resources.

"Stocking rate is the key point that can go either way," he said. "You can run too few stock and not be able to pay your bills. You can run too many stock and deplete your resources and not pay your bills."

White said management must achieve short-term needs while sustaining the resources for the future.

He said he's known some ranchers who have done an excellent job of growing grass, but didn't manage their financial resources and went broke. On the other hand, he's known others who have done a good job of managing their livestock and marketing but went broke because they didn't manage their range resources.

"They made a lot of money up front, but as that resource deteriorated, it cost more and more money to try to recover it, to keep the brush out, to provide feed for the livestock that the range no longer provides," he said. "Then they wonder why they can't make money."

White still believes it's possible to make money in the ranching business, but that margins are much tighter than in the past.

"I remember in 1973, when the price of cattle was better than it's ever been," White recalled. "In Florida, we were getting $1.10 a pound for a calf until September, 1973, when it crashed to 30 cents a pound."

There were still ranchers making a profit on 30 cent a pound calves, he said.

"They couldn't believe it when they were getting $1.10," White noted. "Some of those people took advantage of that market. They sold out because they didn't believe that market would hold. They sold out, rested their range, and two or three years later when everybody was forced into selling animals for 30 cents a pound, they bought the best livestock they could find."

Selling high and buying low, he said, can work if the producer is monitoring and making timely decisions.

In balancing supply and demand, he admitted that annual planned stocking rates are established before the producer knows the next year's production. Therefore, they are always wrong.

"Always believe that your plan is wrong," he advised. "If you believe it's wrong, you're going to try to find out what's happening to it, and you're going to try to make sure that it works by making timely adjustments. If you assume it's right, you're going to be caught up short. Always assume your plan is wrong, but it's your best plan for forecasting the future."

The stocking rate is always going to be too heavy or too light.

"Seldom have we ever had a stocking rate right on target," White insisted.

He said producers have to make on-site inspections.

"You can't do it in the office," White said. "You can't do it with a computer. You can get some ideas from the literature and the computer, but then you have to go out and look."

He said producers shouldn't be afraid to throw away what came out of the computer when they see the real world. They can learn from that, and as a result they should be a better steward, many of the common goals will be achieved and there should be less discourse from people worrying about the resource.

"Stewardship requires tremendous effort and tough decisions," White warned. "It requires tough decisions on the part of the rancher, on the part of the Forest Service, on the part of the environmental community or anyone else who's concerned about the resources."

The issue is working together to improve the resource, not of personalities.

"If we have one issue in mind, then we can get past our differences," White said. "We can talk openly, honestly, reflect on those conversations and learn from each other."

White looks for thresholds of forage based on types of ranges in order to establish stocking rates.

"Thresholds can identify how much forage, how much residue, has to be left at all times," he explained. "By protecting that, we know that anything that grows over that, we can utilize."

Range health depends on the amount of cover left ungrazed, but financial health in the short term depends upon how much is eaten.

There's the bottleneck," he said. "You have to balance that."

If a manager knows how much he needs to leave, then he can use the rest of it for his own benefit and not violate the threshold.

"The person on the ground can make the best operational decisions of what happens," he said.

"If he violates the threshold, then he'll be the first to come in and tell you we've got a problem because he knows the standard," White told Forest Service representatives.

He said the permittee's range resource is the capital asset from which he gets all his returns.

"Let's take a $1000 savings account," he explained. "You get four percent a year. How much can you harvest every year and maintain the same income? What happens if you eat more than four percent? You eat into your asset and your future income is depleted."

Short term overgrazing can pay, he admitted.

"If I ate into that asset eight or 10 percent, it would pay if I put it into a better investment that gave a higher return," White said. "But by doing so, I ate into my asset. That means I have to allow recovery time for it to get back up to par. I can't do that every year, or pretty soon I've depleted my assets and my income is gone."

Grazing is based on the same principle, he contended.

"The amount you leave ungrazed, or increasing the amount you leave ungrazed, will increase the asset for the future and your income and benefits."

Based on research and experience, White has developed a series of thresholds for forage residue.

"I will tell you it is life-form oriented rather than species oriented, although there are species differences that will reflect this," White said.

For shortgrass pastures, he suggests 300 to 500 pounds per acre. For mid-grass range, he recommends 750 to 1000 pounds. For tallgrass prairie he recommends 1200 to 1500 pounds.

These are only guidelines, he emphasized. They should be adjusted for specific areas and specific operations.

"In eastern Oklahoma, where they have high rainfall, work there indicates that you have to leave 2000 pounds ungrazed in the tallgrass prairie," White said.

The high humidity and high rainfall means faster decomposition. In New Mexico, he said, there is slower decomposition.

The producer has to take that into account and adjust it, he said.

"I put a range in there for a reason," White said. "I don't know the exact number, but as you start to approach that number, you should become more cautious, realize your risk is increasing, and then you have to project when it's going to rain. When am I going to grow more forage?"

White said producers are watershed managers first because it takes soil water to grow the grass.

"If you don't get the water into the soil, you don't grow any grass, and it creates all sorts of other problems," he explained. "All the water comes off the slope and carries the sediment with it."

He described a South Texas study in which one rancher left 75 to 80 pounds of forage, got 17 inches of rain and grew about 1800 pounds of forage. Another rancher left almost 1400 pounds of forage, got 10 inches of rain and grew 4000 pounds.

"The key is if you leave a little more out there, water will infiltrate into the soil and not run off," White said. "That's why soil water is your most valuable resource. You let that water leave, it's no longer yours. If you capture the water, you'll grow the forage. If you capture the water, you won't have the erosion problems and you'll have clean water flowing into the stream."

Financial constraints on the rancher are the deciding factor, he said.