Just Because It’s Rained, Don’t Forget the Lessons Of the Recent Drought

Beating the Hydro-Illogical Cycle

Once it starts raining, the hydro-illogical cycle begins. The cycle is about the illogical nature of people forgetting about the lessons of the drought and believing that rain will continue to fall. People sometimes think they will return to normal rainfall patterns. But there is really nothing “normal” about the weather. There are only averages.

If you are not familiar with the hydro-illogical cycle, it starts with rain. Then it moves to apathy or what some call inertia. Once again, they assume that it is raining and nothing more needs to be done. From apathy or inertia, it moves to drought, then awareness, then concern, then panic, and once again, rain. I often add resignation after panic because once the rancher sees nothing more can be done, they frequently give up on trying to save animals and sell them at a loss.

In 2022 and 2023, drought snuck up on many a farmer and rancher. Many were consumed by apathy. When we treat our land like there will be rain when we need it, we get caught in the hydro-illogical cycle. What we need to learn from drought is that every drop of rainfall should become effective rainfall.

Effective rainfall can be defined as the measure of rain that soaks into the soil and is available for use by the plants of the field. This is different from the total rainfall measured. Depending on where it falls, some of the total rainfall evaporates or runs off before it flows into the ground. And run-off is not very effective for growing grass.

The following is a factual story I read when studying Soil Classification at Texas A&M in 1972.

Along the Ohio River, an eleven-inch rain was recorded by the Soil Conservation Service. The monitor next to a fallow corn field recorded a whopping 94.7% of the water as runoff along with several tons of soil. Next to woodland, 31.5% runoff was recorded, along with a large amount of organic matter. Monitors along the river recorded that adjacent to a field of native grasses, 25.8% was runoff and most of that was pure water. The effective rainfall for that field was over 8 inches, while the effective rain for the corn field was a little over ½ inch.

Ranchers who expect grass to grow on rainfall alone make a serious error in range management. Those who apply chemical fertilizers to grow grass in the spring think that a salt compound will improve the soil sufficiently to keep grass growing all season long. As grass grows taller and more cattle are added, eventually the grass is grazed to the ground. By summer, they are back to where they started. And if a dry spell comes along, they scramble to buy and feed increasingly expensive hay.

Ranchers like the one above go from rain, to apathy/ inertia, to drought, to concern and awareness. Then when the drought continues and hay or supplemental feed is hard to find, the rancher panics. Only when resignation sets in are cattle sold, usually at a loss.

Making effective use of rainfall might have averted the panic stage. By allowing the grass to grow and not adding more cattle, taller grass would have put more roots and organic matter into the soil. For every one percent of organic matter increase in the soil, an additional 20,000 gallons of water becomes available for the plants. At the least, this strategy might save paying to feed the animals for two more weeks.

When my father built ponds at the family ranch, his aim was that no drop of water would run off unless the soil was saturated. So, we constructed five ponds along the drainage lines. A few times the ponds overflowed. twice taking out part of the last dam. While we caught water, we still didn’t grow enough grass. This was due to my dad’s lack of understanding grass management. He thought the animals needed to graze the grass to the ground before moving on. Without the grass catching the water, the ponds filled too fast. Over time the ponds also filled with silt.

A ranch or farm where grass is four inches or taller and the organic matter is 5% will generally put the majority of a six-inch rain into the ground. You are not likely to find many of those ranches in Fayette County, including my ranch in 2022. However, in 2023, most of my grass was taller than 6 inches by early April and most of the April-May rainfall went into the ground.

“The man who has a short pasture needs rain much worse than his neighbor who has ample forage on the range…but when rain comes, it does the least good for the fellow who needs it most,” E.J. Dyksterhuis.

So, what’s the take-away of this rainy story? Grow taller grass and don’t let the cattle graze it to the ground. That would help. This would be a good first step in making rainfall more effective and stopping Fayette County soils from traveling down to the Gulf of Mexico. The real take-away, as I see it, is not to allow yourself to fall into the hydro-illogical cycle-start learning more about regenerative ranching.

David E. Will is a Schulenburg- area rancher and consultant. He can be reached at 830-629-9876 or by email at dwill207@satx.rr.com.