How can understanding fescue’s strengths and risks help graziers capitalize on fescue’s durability while protecting livestock?

Our new fact sheet, Best Practices: Managing Fescue in Solar Grazing Systems, breaks down the unique challenges and opportunities presented by tall fescue. With fescue covering roughly 30 million acres and appearing on many solar sites for its persistence and erosion-control benefits, understanding how to manage it is essential for ensuring animal performance, site productivity, and long-term success.

Tall fescue is an incredibly resilient, cool-season forage that offers real advantages: extended grazing seasons, reduced input needs, and strong performance during winter stockpiling. But when the Kentucky-31 (KY-31) variety is present, its symbiotic relationship with a toxic endophytic fungus can create animal health and productivity issues, making strategic management indispensable.

This fact sheet outlines how graziers can navigate fescue’s dual nature, offering evidence-based strategies such as incorporating legumes to dilute toxins, maintaining appropriate grazing heights, using stockpiled forage during low-toxin winter periods, and selecting more tolerant breeds. It also highlights why considering forage variety during the pre-construction phase of solar development, particularly the use of novel endophyte fescue, can dramatically improve long-term outcomes.

For anyone grazing livestock on solar sites in or near the Fescue Belt, this resource is a must-read for understanding how fescue variety, regional climate, and site-specific microenvironments interact, and how targeted management can turn a potential challenge into a grazing asset.

You can read and download the Best Practices: Managing Fescue in Solar Grazing Systems fact sheet below: