By DOUG RICH

WHEAT AND CATTLE--Nate and Luke Meier, Okeene Okla., plan to graze out nearly 400 acres of wheat this year. Normally, they graze out 200 to 300 acres. (Journal photo by Doug Rich)

It was an exceptional year for grazing cattle on wheat in Oklahoma, according to Nate Meier. The Meier brothers, Nate and Luke, raise wheat and cattle around Okeene, Okla. “The cattle did great this year,” Nate said. “We had once-in-a-lifetime gains.”

The steers had an average daily gain of 3.2 pounds from pay weight to pay weight. Normally a gain of three pounds per day would be considered excellent. Meier said the steer calves came off wheat pasture weighing 250 pounds more than normal. Even the heifers had an ADG of 2.3 pounds.

Considering that Meier did not supplement the calves this is really good for wheat pasture.

“This is 100 percent not normal,” Meier said.

This year the Meier brothers had a lot of ranch cattle from Montana, Kansas, and New Mexico. Calves are turned out as close to Nov. 1 as possible or as soon as the wheat will allow. They want the calves to have plenty to eat when they are first turned out. Meier said they start pulling calves off wheat March 1 and try to have them off the wheat completely by March 7.

“We had a really good set of cattle this year that were easy from day one,” Meier said.

Nearly their entire wheat crop is winter grazed and from 200 to 300 acres is grazed out every year. This year they plan to graze out 400 acres. Meier said they use graze out as a rotation to keep their wheat

field clean. The Meier brothers started planting wheat last fall in late September and finished up in early October. They planted Endurance, Duster, and Fuller varieties this year.

“We are pretty happy with the way Duster performed and want to plant more this fall. Duster provided an incredible amount of grazing for their cattle. Meier said it is the best forage wheat he has ever seen. Conditions for planting were perfect last fall and they got a good stand of Duster and were able to puts an enormous amount of cattle on it.

“Jagger wheat was a game changer when it came out in the 1990s and now Duster will be a game changer as far as being able to graze cattle and harvest grain,” Meier said. “I have high hopes for it.”

Duster is a hard red winter wheat that was released by Oklahoma State University in 2006. It grows rapidly in the fall like Jagger but there is no Jagger in its pedigree. OSU wheat trials show that Duster has above average tillering and recovers quickly from grazing. Since they are after forage for grazing they plant wheat at a heavier rate, around 80 to 85 pounds. Except for Duster, which they planted at 65 pounds per acre. Meier said it still made more forage then the other varieties.

Because they graze all of their wheat they used conventional tillage practices to break up the heavy clay soils. Meier said they disk, then chisel, put on anhydrous ammonia and finally cultivate before sowing their wheat. The fertilizer in applied in a split application. Anhydrous ammonia is applied in late summers, an 18-46-0 starter goes down with the wheat, and then they top-dress in January, February, or March.

“This was a good year for us but with the soil we gave we can't get too greedy." Meier said.