As wonderful as 2015 was, 2016 is racing off in the other direction weather-wise here in the southern High Plains:  warm, dry, and windy.  The first Bradford pear trees blossomed last weekend, almost three full weeks early.  And NOAA is forecasting a transition from the current El Niño to a La Niña pattern in the fall.  If you are a cattle feeder, it’s time to start getting your feedyard surfaces ready for the “high season.”

Here’s a bulletin we wrote in 2011, one of the hottest, driest summers in memory:  SP417.  It summarizes the basic strategies and tactics for managing feedyard dust in a summer drought.

A fugitive dust plume building over a cattle feedyard (June, 2006).

The next year, we tested the use of electric cross-fencing to manipulate stocking density for dust control.  We published the results in 2014:  SE 10681.  The bottom line: it seems to work pretty well.

Your #1 objective between now and May 1 is to get your inventory of uncompacted manure on corral surfaces to its practical minimum.  Even if you have water for water trucks or a sprinkler system, if you have more than 1/2″ – 1″ of uncompacted manure averaged across the whole feedyard, you’re going to be playing catch-up all summer long.