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McCook ag lab owner urges annual water and feed testing
McCOOK, Neb. -- Cattle producers know that a consistent supply of drinkable water, along with the proper nutritious feeds, are critical to their animals' well-being -- and to the bottom line for their business. However, there can be some serious hazards lurking in that water and food, so knowing about their presence -- and specifically what they are -- can protect ranchers' investments.
"Every cow operation should be testing their water just to make sure that they are, first of all, aware of what the concentrations of potential contaminants are," said Kevin Grooms, the owner and lab director of Olsen's Agriculture Laboratory in McCook. Grooms, who has spent 27 years at the business, said that while water testing gives ranchers an initial idea of why cattle may or may not be drinking from one source or another, he said the biggest area of concern that testing can clear up is whether or not the water is safe to drink.
"Nitrate-N levels in livestock water should be less than 100 parts-per-million," Grooms explained. "If you're approaching that 100 parts-per-million, you're reaching toxic levels. If you're going to be supplementing their diet with high-nitrate feed, you're just adding that on top of the water, and a lot of people don't recognize that the water is part of that equation."
Nitrates are, in fact, what the staff at Olsen's tends to find most often when they test water from the area, Grooms said, but he added, "Contaminants come in many forms." Nitrates and sulfates are two that can have the most impact on cattle production, he said.
Grooms, who holds degrees in chemistry and biology from Chadron State College, said that producers should have their water supply tested at least once a year, and do it with regularity. "There are changes, not only in the quality of the water, but in the level of the water," Grooms explained. "As the water is drawn down, you can have increases in the contaminant in that area or within that sub-area of the profile. If you were to be routine every year, and test it at the same time, you're always testing at that same aquifer level, so to speak."
Cattle ranchers should also have all of their individual wells tested, he advised, even though they likely draw from the same underlying source. "Water is very dynamic. There are changes, some subtle, some not-so-subtle changes that can occur throughout a growing season depending on the water table in the area that they're pulling the water from," he said. "What the water is being pulled from, whether it's lying on bedrock or soil structure that it's contained within, could have many geological contaminants in it."
While Olsen's feed testing, of course, runs the gamut of feedstuffs -- the business also tests rations, minerals and distillers' grains -- when it comes to checking for toxicity risks, they focus on forage crops, particularly commonly used ones like sorghum, corn and assorted grasses. Speaking about such cattle feed, Grooms -- this year's vice president of the National Forage Testing Association -- again strongly suggested annual testing. "Every year is very unique to the plant growing season," he said, "especially in recent years where we've had so much drought or when they have high amounts of moisture and then drought and then back to high moisture events."
Again, Grooms said that ranchers must keep an eye out for an abundance of unwanted nitrates, which are pulled up by those plants during such events. The ups-and-downs of the thermometer during a growing season are often to blame. "You can have stress from high temperatures, you can have stress created by shading or low temperatures," Grooms said, and added, "If we lived in an area where the temperature was 82 degrees everyday, you could say, 'well, last year I did this and ten years ago I did this,' but with the climatic events that we've been seeing over the past five years and the differences in the growing season, [cattle producers] really should test just to see what is happening."
Grooms also suggested that ranchers have feedstuffs tested before they feed it to their cattle, particularly if they rely on forage crops (or even wild grasses and weeds) that could be hiding such dangers as nitrates and Prussic acid, and that they do a wide sampling to get a more accurate picture of the safety of their food supply. Talking about hay as an example, Grooms said, "It is best, if you're going to get a representative sample, to actually probe twenty bales in an area ... to get a well-rounded sample to the laboratory."
Alternatively, if a rancher also produces the hay or other grasses that he's going to feed his cattle, Grooms said that he might have them tested before cutting and baling it. If it's high in nitrates at that point, Grooms said that the producer may be able to let it grow for another week or two to see if that extra time diminishes the nitrate concentration.