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What you do before drought is whathelps you survive drought. Thats

the consensus of several Great Plains cattleranchers who have shared their droughtstrategies for a recently created droughtplanning website.

The site available atwww.drought.unl.edu/ranchplan waslaunched during the summer of 2011 by theNational Drought Mitigation Center(NDMC) at the University of NebraskaLincoln.

Tonya Haigh, a rural sociologist with the

NDMC, says the Centers mission is to helplessen drought effects on society. Sheexplains that the U.S. Drought Monitor

map and the Drought ImpactReporter a site thatarchives drought-relatednews and individualproducer reports areboth tools alreadyoffered by NDMC.Now, the new websiteadds another facet tohelp ranchers create awritten plan of their specificstrategies to manage drought.

Haigh shares that a common mistake

landowners make with drought is lack ofplanning. She says, Human nature withregard to drought is to be aware, then

become concerned, then panic asdrought intensifies but once

it rains, people tend toreturn to apathy.

Instead of crisismanagement, Haigh andthe NDMC team stressthat producers shouldapproach drought with

preparedness and riskmanagement strategies.

Planning, monitoring andprediction before drought can often lessen

the severity of the impact of the drought,says Haigh.

Online planning tool developedOver the last decade, the NDMC has

conducted producer surveys and interviewson how ranchers were affected by droughtand what management methods they feltwere most beneficial to the sustainability oftheir ranch operation.

Most producers did think that theirmanagement methods helped them getthrough the drought, shares Haigh.Management steps like stockpiling hay, being

flexible with herd size and having waterdevelopments on their land were cited asbeneficial.

The producers also emphasized that thereis no magic bullet during drought, Haighemphasizes. Definitely everyones situationand plans differ.

Based on the input provided by producers,the Managing Drought Risk on the Ranchwebsite was created with the aim of educatingranchers about drought and providing aformat to develop their own individual ranchplan with strategies before, during and

after drought.Funding for the website was provided

from the USDA Risk Management Agencywith collaborators from the NDMC, SouthDakota State University, University ofNebraskaLincoln and Texas A&MKingsville.

Materials on the site are generallyapplicable to the Great Plains region fromTexas to North Dakota. Sections on the siteinclude information about

@drought basics;

@inventory and monitoring;

@strategies to consider before drought;

@strategies to consider during drought;

164 n ANGUSJournal n February 2012

What do ranchers do to prepare for drought?Rural sociologist Tonya Haigh acknowledges that every ranch is unique and different.

But research conducted by the National Drought Mitigation Center, she says, reveals

there are some commonalities among ranchers who have been successful at mitigatingthe effects of drought on their ranch. What are their strategies? Haigh shares this list:

@They know how much forage they are capable of producing, how much rainfall ittakes to produce that forage and what their forage demand is throughout the year.

@They build flexibility into their system.

@They manage to improve the health of their rangeland resources.

@They track rainfall and monitor their forage production.

@They know when in the year they have to make decisions about stocking rates, andthey stick to those dates.

@They know what they are going to do if their precipitation or forage levels tell themthat they need to adjust the stocking rate.

@They think about the long-term health of their resources and the long-term financial

management of their operations.

Act Rather Than ReactSurviving drought requires planning well before the rain stops. A new website

offers tools to develop your ranchs own drought plan.

byKindra Gordon

7/31/2019 Tools for Developing Your own Drought Plan: Surviving drought requires planning well before the rain stops:

2/2February 2012 n ANGUSJournal n 165

@strategies to consider after drought; and

@writing a drought plan.

Haigh notes that the Write a Plansection on the website includes seven specificsteps to assist ranchers with the process.These include forming a planning team thatalso considers conservation and financialexpertise. Additionally, the vision andstrategic objectives of the ranch must be

considered as the drought plan is developed.Sample drought plans from eight Great

Plains ranching operations are also includedin the Write a Plan section on the site.Haigh says, I think the lessons shared inthese real life examples are one of the mosthelpful parts of the website.

Haigh notes that these eight case studiesshare their critical dates and the targetconditions they monitor during the year.Haigh says each landowner stresses howimportant it has been to have such dates.

A common recommendation that kept

coming up from landowners and droughtadvisors as we put together this website wasthat the earlier producers make decisions andadjust stocking rates during drought, thebetter.

Lessons learnedOne of the featured case studies on the

Managing Drought website is Welch Ranchfrom southern Colorado.

You cannot drought-proof a ranch,ranch managers share of their lessonslearned. You can help and you can delay theeffects and you can minimize them, but youcant drought-proof your ranch.

Haigh concurs. She notes that severedrought can undermine anyones plans, andthe choices rangeland managers must makecan be difficult.

But, she adds, The landowners wevesurveyed emphasize that the planning you doearly is definitely beneficial. This website isfocused on defining drought options beforethe drought happens. She adds, Then if

your monitoring indicates a drought

situation, the plan is there and the stress anduncertainty has less of an impact on yourdecision.

Editors Note: Access the Managing Drought Riskon the Ranch website atwww.drought.unl.edu/ranchplan. The U.S. Drought Monitor map isavailable atwww.droughtmonitor.unl.eduand theDrought Impact Reporter is available atwww.droughtreporter.unl.edu. For additional

resources on drought, visitwww.angusjournal.com/drought/,the AngusProductions Inc. (API) information site developedto provide cattlemen a one-stop portal toinformation on how to deal with drought.

A spring drought tipIf you experience lower-than-average

moisture in the spring, and suspectit could be a drought by summer,University of Nebraska forage specialistBruce Anderson has some advice. Hesuggests feeding hay a bit longer inthe spring before turning cows out topermanent pasture.

I know this action is exactlyopposite of my usual recommendationto graze more and feed less hay,

Anderson says. But, allowing pasturesto accumulate a bit more growth beforegrazing begins will provide more totalgrazable forage if drought preventsmuch regrowth later on. Leftover hay

also can be used later during thegrazing season to give pastures moretime to recover between grazings.

Another strategy is planting drought-tolerant forages for pasture or hay.Summer annual grasses like Sudangrass, sorghum-Sudan hybrids andpearl millet are excellent choices. Waituntil soils are good and warm beforeplanting these grasses, Andersoncautions. Late May or early Juneusually is best.

He adds that these grasses couldalso be planted as a double crop into

the stubble after wheat harvest.