Warm season grass help anyone?

[FarmerDavid]

Been working for over a month trying to rent some pasture. Origionally water was going to be an issue but now that's been resolved. The ground has several pastures with warm season grasses in them. One prairie, the rest a mixture of gamma grass, big blue stem, and other similar grasses. Looking for advice on pasturing and baleing these types of warm season grasses.

[Awnry Abe]

Graze and bale as you would cool season grasses (ie at the same growth stage). Our cows go nuts for gamma up until the vegetation turns red/brown, then it must become unpalatable because the complain about the stuff. Then I just clip it for winter at 8" and put them back on the fescue.

[ramiller5675]

I've always baled prairie hay before the middle of July to give the grass enough time to recover before winter. Once it goes dormant for the winter, then you can graze a field cut for hay (you might need to supplement with some cubes), clip it shorter if you feel the need, or just leave it standing over the winter (with normal moisture, it'll be on the ground by the time it's ready to cut for hay).

There's a rotational grazing method called Intensive Early Stocking that comes out of Colorado and Kansas that is supposed to be beneficial to native grass pastures. During May-July, cattle are stocked at double the typical May-Sept grazing season stocking rate, then the pasture is allowed to regrow (similar to cutting a hay field in July and letting it grow until winter).

I've never tried IES, but my gut tells me that it would thicken up some of my native grass pastures.