By NTFR Staff

A brown patch in a pasture may look simple from the pickup. The grass is dry, the cattle have grazed it too closely or it needs a good rain. Sometimes one of those explanations is correct. Other times, the damaged area may be the first visible sign of insects, disease, poor soil fertility, compaction or a grazing problem that has been developing for years.

Many pasture problems look alike from a distance. Drought-stressed grass can turn yellow or brown, but so can grass damaged by armyworms. A nutrient deficiency may cause weak, pale growth that resembles disease. Overgrazing can thin the stand and let weeds move in, while compacted soil can keep rainfall from reaching plant roots.

Treating the wrong problem wastes money and lets the real cause get worse. Fertilizer will not stop an insect infestation, and insecticide will not correct a soil deficiency. Before applying anything, slow down, walk the pasture and figure out what the grass is telling you.

Start With the Pattern

The shape and location of the damage provide the first clues. A problem that appears evenly across the entire pasture may point toward drought, poor fertility or a widespread management issue. Damage that begins in patches, follows a fence line or moves across a field may point more toward insects, disease, drainage problems or soil differences.

Begin by comparing the affected area with healthy grass nearby. Look at the color, height and density of the forage. Check whether the damage is limited to one forage species or affects nearly every plant in the area. Notice whether weeds stay green while the desired grass struggles.

Drought stress commonly shows up first on shallow soils, exposed slopes and other places that hold less moisture. Grass may fold or roll its leaves to conserve water before it turns gray-green, yellow or brown. In severe conditions, the plant may stop growing above ground and live on stored energy.

A pasture does not always recover as fast as it greens up. Rain may bring new leaves, but plants weakened by prolonged drought still need time to rebuild their root systems and energy reserves. Turning livestock onto new growth too soon can strip away the leaf area the plants need to recover.

Overgrazing can produce similar symptoms, especially when livestock keep returning to their preferred plants. Overgrazing has more to do with timing than with how short the grass gets. It occurs when livestock graze a plant again before it has recovered from the previous grazing.

When leaves are removed, the plant uses stored carbohydrates to begin regrowth. If livestock eat that new growth almost immediately, the plant must draw from its reserves again. Repeated grazing without recovery eventually weakens the roots, reduces forage production and may kill desirable plants.

Signs include closely cropped grass, bare soil, increasing weed pressure and an uneven pasture where livestock graze some plants repeatedly while less desirable species stay tall. Areas around water, shade, mineral feeders and gates often get especially heavy use, and soil in those spots may also become compacted.

Compaction reduces the pore space that lets air and water move through the soil. Rainfall may run off instead of soaking in, and plant roots may stay shallow or struggle to penetrate the soil. You can compare suspected areas by pushing a soil probe or sturdy rod into the ground when soil moisture is similar. A shovel can also reveal shallow roots, dense soil layers or standing water below the surface.

Poor fertility is another common cause of weak or discolored grass, but plant color alone can’t diagnose a nutrient deficiency. Nitrogen deficiency often produces pale green or yellow growth and reduced production. Other nutrient problems may affect older or younger leaves differently, depending on how the nutrient moves within the plant.

Soil testing is the only dependable way to find out what the soil needs. A representative sample should combine soil collected from several locations with similar soil type, management and production history. Sample unusual areas, such as feeding sites, wet spots or visibly damaged patches, separately instead of mixing them with the rest of the pasture.

Soil pH deserves particular attention because it affects nutrient availability and plant growth. Fertilizer applied without correcting an unsuitable pH may produce disappointing results. At the same time, adding lime or nutrients the soil doesn’t need raises costs and may create new problems.

Look More Closely

When damage seems to appear overnight, put insects high on the list of suspects. Fall armyworms can remove large amounts of forage in a short time, particularly when producers discover them late in their development.

Young fall armyworm larvae scrape the green tissue from grass blades, leaving a thin, pale membrane sometimes described as a windowpane. Larger larvae chew through the leaves and can leave a pasture looking frosted or burned. Birds feeding heavily in one part of a field can also be a clue that caterpillars are present.

Scouting works best early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when larvae are more active. A sweep net can collect small caterpillars that are hard to see. You can also bend a wire coat hanger into a hoop, place it on the ground and carefully count the larvae inside it. Check several locations, including field margins and the interior of the pasture.

Base treatment decisions on the number and size of the larvae, the amount and value of forage at risk and the cost of control. As a general guideline, Extension specialists often recommend considering treatment when about three to four larvae per square foot are present. Small larvae are easier to control than large ones, so early detection matters.

Any pesticide used on pasture must be labeled for that site and pest. The label also lists grazing, haying and harvest restrictions that can differ among products. Grass disappearing is not reason enough to spray an insecticide. The caterpillars must still be present and actively feeding for treatment to accomplish anything.

Plant diseases are less common than drought, fertility and grazing problems in many pastures, but don’t dismiss them. Several fungal diseases can affect bermudagrass, including some that damage roots or produce irregular patches of dead grass. Disease may become more noticeable when plants are already stressed by heat, drought, poor drainage, improper fertility or other unfavorable conditions.

Pull several plants from the edge of a damaged patch instead of from the completely dead center. Examine the roots, crowns, stems and leaves. Healthy roots are generally firm and well developed. Dark, shortened or rotting roots may indicate disease or prolonged soil saturation. Leaf spots, lesions and discolored stems can provide additional evidence.

Because pasture diseases can closely resemble other problems, applying a fungicide without a diagnosis is seldom a good first step. You may need to submit samples to a plant diagnostic laboratory. The best samples usually include plants showing a range of symptoms, along with healthy plants for comparison. Photographs of the entire affected area can help diagnosticians understand the pattern in the field.

Weeds may be part of the cause, the result of the problem or both. As desirable forage thins, sunlight reaches the soil surface and gives weed seeds a chance to germinate. Weeds then compete with the remaining forage for water, nutrients and space.

Spraying the weeds may improve the look of the field, but it will not necessarily fix the condition that let them move in. Unless grazing pressure, fertility, soil condition or forage density improves, another weed may take their place.

Consider simpler possibilities, too. Herbicide drift can produce distorted, twisted or discolored growth. Fertilizer or chemical application errors may leave straight lines, overlaps or skipped strips. Standing water can kill plants in low areas, while damaged water lines may create isolated wet spots. Salt, manure and concentrated livestock traffic can also affect grass near feeders, troughs and corrals.

Good records make these problems easier to solve. Rainfall, fertilizer applications, grazing dates, stocking rates, herbicide use and previous insect outbreaks can help explain what is happening. Photographs taken from the same locations throughout the year may reveal gradual changes that are hard to recognize during daily ranch work.

Most pasture failures build as several smaller problems overlap. Dry weather weakens the grass, and livestock keep grazing the remaining plants. Bare ground expands, weeds appear and runoff increases. Then an insect outbreak or another dry spell pushes the pasture past the point where it can recover quickly.

When you spot the first brown patch, inspect it closely before you buy fertilizer or chemicals. Walk past the edge of the damage, look at the whole plant and consider what has happened in that pasture over the previous weeks and months. Identifying the cause before choosing a treatment is usually the least expensive place to start.

By NTFR Staff

For many years, most ranchers heard about New World screwworm only from older generations. It belonged to history books, old stories and warnings from veterinarians who remembered what it could do before the U.S. eradicated it.

That changed this summer. On June 3, 2026, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed New World screwworm in a calf in Zavala County, Texas. Officials have reported additional detections in Texas since that first case, and state and federal agencies have responded with surveillance, movement restrictions in affected areas and sterile fly releases.

Common maggots feed on dead tissue. Screwworm larvae feed on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals, including cattle, horses, sheep, goats, dogs, wildlife and, rarely, people. The fly is attracted to open wounds and moist body openings. Even a small wound, such as a tick bite, castration site, dehorning wound, branding wound or newborn’s navel, can draw the female fly.

For North Texas producers, awareness is the key right now. You have no reason to panic, but you do have reason to pay close attention.

Check animals regularly for wounds, especially during fly season, and take any wound that seems to be getting worse instead of healing seriously. Warning signs can include a foul odor, visible larvae, bloody or watery discharge, swelling, pain, restlessness, head shaking, licking or animals separating themselves from the herd.

If you suspect screwworm, contact your veterinarian or animal health officials immediately. Early detection matters for the animal and for controlling the spread.

Ranchers and scientists have beaten this pest before. The sterile insect technique, which uses sterile male flies to interrupt reproduction, was the key to eradicating screwworm from the United States decades ago, and officials are using that same method again.

For now, North Texas livestock owners should inspect animals often, treat wounds promptly, follow any animal movement guidance from officials and report anything suspicious.

Screwworm is an old threat, and producers need to learn to recognize it again.

Congress has tried three times in the last five years to make the Chisholm Trail official. Each bill proposed the same idea: fold the old cattle route, along with its neighbor the Western Trail, into the National Trails System as a National Historic Trail, the same federal designation that covers the Appalachian Trail and the route Lewis and Clark walked. Lawmakers introduced the measure in 2020, again in 2021, and again in 2023. All three died in committee.

Oklahoma ranchers are a large part of the reason why.

The National Park Service spent a decade studying the idea. Congress authorized the feasibility study in 2009, and the Park Service delivered its findings to Congress in 2019: both trails qualified. The study never settled who would answer for a designated route that runs through 109 counties in four states and touches about 76.7 million acres, most of it wheat and cattle ground owned by the families who work it, not by Washington, and taxed by the county, not the Park Service. No farm or ranch organization sat at the table when the Park Service held its public scoping meetings, despite agriculture being the dominant land use along most of the corridor. Only 326 people statewide showed up to speak for that much acreage.

The Oklahoma Farm Bureau read the study and objected on paper. In comments signed by then-president Tom Buchanan and regulatory affairs director Marla Peek, the organization laid out the cost: $500,000 to $800,000 to write a management plan, $350,000 to $500,000 a year for Park Service staff, and as much as $4 million just to inventory the route, expenses that tend to land on the landowners a designation is supposed to honor. Farm Bureau argued for what the Park Service calls Alternative A: no action. Do the study, note the history, and leave the fences where they are.

The Chisholm Trail exists today because nobody in Washington drew it on a map in the first place. The current fight over federal designation turns that history upside down.

Texas came out of the Civil War with one asset: cattle, and too many of them. Longhorns that couldn’t fetch five dollars a head in Texas were bringing forty dollars in Kansas and points east, and an Illinois cattle dealer named Joseph McCoy saw the gap before anyone else moved on it. In 1867 he talked the local railroad into laying a spur to Abilene, built pens and loading chutes, and sent word south that a market had opened. Abilene shipped 35,000 head that first year. By 1871 the number had climbed past 600,000.

The trail McCoy’s cattle rode north carried someone else’s name. Jesse Chisholm, a Scottish-Cherokee trader born around 1805 in the hill country of Tennessee, spent his life moving goods between trading posts in Indian Territory. He spoke a dozen languages and worked as a guide and interpreter as often as a merchant, and he died in 1868 of food poisoning near present-day Geary, Oklahoma, a year after the first big herds started following the wagon ruts he and his associates had already worn into the ground. He never trailed a single steer up the route that carries his name.

A braid of smaller trails existed instead, feeder routes out of South Texas that converged near the Red River and ran as a single corridor north through Indian Territory before splitting again on the Kansas side. Tribal governments along the way collected a toll for the right to cross their land, most accounts put it at ten cents a head. Nobody surveyed a right-of-way. Nobody filed an easement. Drovers picked their own path within a corridor that could spread several miles wide, wide enough for two thousand to three thousand head to graze as they walked, moving ten to twelve miles a day and stopping wherever there was water. A trail boss, a cook, a wrangler, and ten or so cowboys could push twenty-five hundred cattle from the Rio Grande to Kansas in about three months. By the U.S. Bureau of Statistics count, somewhere between five and six million cattle made that walk between 1867 and 1884, the largest voluntary migration of livestock in American history, arranged through handshake deals between cattlemen and tribal nations and not one act of Congress.

It didn’t last two decades. Kansas passed a quarantine law in 1885 closing the state to Texas cattle unless they’d wintered north of the 36th parallel with a health certificate, and Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming followed with laws of their own. Barbed wire strung across what had been open range closed the gaps between fenced ground faster than any statute did. By the late 1880s the great herds had shifted west to the Western Trail or stopped moving altogether, replaced by railroad spurs that reached closer to the ranches themselves.

That history is why the current fight reads strange from the saddle. A route that took shape because government stayed out of the way is now up for federal protection, and the protection is the thing landowners along it don’t want. The Western Region Property Rights Coalition, which formed to fight the designation, argues that a National Historic Trail functions less like a line on a map and more like a viewshed the Park Service can regulate for miles in any direction from any point along the route, without buying the land or asking the people who farm it. Representative Ron Estes of Kansas, who has sponsored every version of the bill since 2020, points to the trails’ place in the story of how Texas cattle rebuilt a ruined region’s economy after the Civil War and argues federal recognition is overdue. The Department of the Interior has told Congress it supports the idea and would welcome technical fixes to get it passed. Farm Bureau chapters across four states have told Congress the opposite.

Neither side disputes the history. Cattle did walk this ground by the millions, and the route did leave a mark on the land that outlasted the drives themselves. Drive south from Enid on U.S. 81 and you’re tracing close to the line the herds followed through El Reno, Chickasha, and Duncan. Between 1990 and 1997, a rancher named Robert Klemme set about four hundred concrete markers along the Oklahoma route, working pasture by pasture with landowners’ permission, one of them standing today a mile and a half south of U.S. 81 near Bison in Garfield County. No fence surrounds it. No agency maintains it. It sits on private land because a private citizen and the families who worked that ground decided it should, which is close to how the trail itself came to exist in the first place.

Whether Congress ever manages to pass a designation bill matters less than what the argument reveals: a hundred and fifty years after the last big herd crossed the Red River, the same question that shaped the Chisholm Trail from the start, who gets to decide what happens on this ground, is still the one Oklahoma ranchers are answering for themselves.