Jun 26, 2026 · 18 min · 9 segments
Unusual weather for the winter, spring and early summer on the high plains has created conditions for some weeds to appear that are not normally seen, and some are toxic. In this episode, Colorado…
Travis TaylorHostScott StinnettHost
Yeah, well, it's been almost two years now, Scott, and anytime that we have these weird weather patterns where we either have periods of dry or we have extreme hails or we have other type of wet springs, we have a different variety of weeds that may show up.
The one that comes to mind that we're talking about is we had an issue with what we call ground cherry.
It's usually known to be in those around peanut fields in the south, and we don't have very many peanut fields here on the high plains.
It looks like one of those little Chinese lantern deals with a tomatillo tomato plant.
in it if you see it out there along the road ditches or in your pastures and it is highly toxic and you know in these years where we may maybe have had some dry and shorter forages and then we get some rains and it comes along we have the ability for some of those things to spread so it's one of them that I would really look out for because you know The instance where I cross paths with it, we had a number of cows there, but we had three that were extremely affected and two of them, well, actually wound up all three of them being fatal in terms of consuming that plant.
It's highly toxic to beef cattle and particularly those of our cattle out here that aren't used to it.
So in those years where we don't have the abundant forage and the ability for cattle select as we've talked on this Pasture to Profit program so many times.
And in that case, I had somebody that was high intensity grazing and that causes them to eat just about everything that's there instead of allowing an animal to select at times.
So it's one of those things that particularly if you're doing some rotational high intensity type grazing, you want to make sure that weeds that cows don't normally eat may be eaten in that area.
So we want to make sure we get a good handle and understanding of what's out there.
So look for strange new weeds and new grazing patterns on some of those, particularly on these years where we don't have consistent weather patterns or maybe consistent forage growth is a better way to put that.
Yeah, well, it's been almost two years now, Scott, and anytime that we have these weird weather patterns where we either have periods of dry or we have extreme hails or we have other type of wet springs, we have a different variety of weeds that may show up.
The one that comes to mind that we're talking about is we had an issue with what we call ground cherry.
It's usually known to be in those around peanut fields in the south, and we don't have very many peanut fields here on the high plains.
It looks like one of those little Chinese lantern deals with a tomatillo tomato plant.
in it if you see it out there along the road ditches or in your pastures and it is highly toxic and you know in these years where we may maybe have had some dry and shorter forages and then we get some rains and it comes along we have the ability for some of those things to spread so it's one of them that I would really look out for because you know The instance where I cross paths with it, we had a number of cows there, but we had three that were extremely affected and two of them, well, actually wound up all three of them being fatal in terms of consuming that plant.
It's highly toxic to beef cattle and particularly those of our cattle out here that aren't used to it.
So in those years where we don't have the abundant forage and the ability for cattle select as we've talked on this Pasture to Profit program so many times.
And in that case, I had somebody that was high intensity grazing and that causes them to eat just about everything that's there instead of allowing an animal to select at times.
So it's one of those things that particularly if you're doing some rotational high intensity type grazing, you want to make sure that weeds that cows don't normally eat may be eaten in that area.
So we want to make sure we get a good handle and understanding of what's out there.
So look for strange new weeds and new grazing patterns on some of those, particularly on these years where we don't have consistent weather patterns or maybe consistent forage growth is a better way to put that.
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