Trees = Shade = Productivity Gains

This past month, a viral video showed thousands of Black Angus cattle in a feedlot dead from a heat wave in Kansas. Heat stress will become all the more frequent with rising temperatures in the main cattle producing states. This means slower weight gain, lack of movement, and potentially, yes, illness and death. 

Heat stress can drive production losses upwards of 9.8% of meat and milk production value. While the disaster in Kansas was at a feedlot, the same challenge is present at the start of the supply chain on pasture.

Much innovation is happening with animal genetics; at the same time, we need to provide producers the toolkit to meet this challenge head-on, mainly through shade, ventilation and access to water. 

Trees have massive potential. Planting and maintaining trees in pasture – a practice called silvopasture – provides significant benefits to cattle and producers. Tree shade can reduce the radiant heat load on cattle by over 30%. Silvopasture systems can cool temperatures by up 4.5 degrees fahrenheit for every 10 metric tons of woody material per acre. Tree leaf nutrition also provides a comparable foraging source for cattle to forbs and grass, potentially saving hundreds of dollars per acre per year. Overall, silvopasture systems have been shown in some cases to increase daily gain by over >50%. 

Shade increases daily gain

* Data from McDaniel and Roark (1956); additional studies reach similar conclusions.

At the same time, silvopasture has been identified as the largest agricultural climate solution we have.

At Working Trees, we get producers paid for the carbon stored in silvopasture systems. We work with producers and third-party technical service providers to plant the right trees for the producer’s land to meet the operation’s goals. 

All in all, there is particular value in silvopasture adoption for livestock producers facing challenges of heat stress, high hay costs, and poor soil health. And you can do so for little to no money down in many states with carbon finance and existing USDA cost share programs. Though the carbon rates vary based on tree growth, we will help connect you as a producer with the right technical partners to decide which trees work for your management goals and then provide you with the carbon revenue projections to make the right decision. As rancher-thought leader Greg Judy put it in a recent Stockman Grass Farmer article, “your animals will thank you the next time your summer temperatures get here, and they need a comfortable place to escape the heat.”