Pasture renovation

[ngcmcn]

I should say first off that this is not Neal, who usually writes here, but the “G” in ngcmcn, Gwyneth. I usually just lurk and read over his shoulder, but grazing is very near and dear to my heart, so I had to chime in! I’m sure I will run on for too long, but hopefully some of it will be helpful.

As someone who has a fair number of years of experience working directly with horse, cattle, sheep and poultry grazing, and running a program which gave me the chance to visit hundreds of grazing farms, I would have to totally disagree with the last post. Especially in a forum like this one, large machines and agrichemicals don’t need to play a part in pasture renovation, and in my opinion they shouldn’t. You have all the tools you need–animals and fence. Add a little clipping to keep those horses moving between other jobs, and you can have a very nice pasture, with a sod that will stand up a lot better to horses than recently tilled ground. Unless you want to do the scorched earth routine every three years or so…

Number one in establishing the plants that you want is to create the conditions that they need. So, for example, liming was a great place to start. Legumes need light, as someone noted, but they also need a fairly neutral pH. Make sure your fertility is good (which it well may be if the pasture has been just left alone for a number of years rather than hayed repeatedly without fertilization). Use fertilizers that add a wide range of nutrients, not just single nutrient blasts. Solid manure is great, compost better. You also will have to make sure to keep rotating those pastures–animals should not be in one place for more than 3 days ideally (though we often stretch it to 5 or so, due to time constraints.)

You need to also accept the plants that your rotation and animals bring, though frost seeding can work fairly well with legumes, all other factors being in line. I like to think sometimes about the seedbank that is in soil. All the herbicides and tillage in the world are not going to rid you of everything in there–and that’s a good thing, because along with the goldenrod there is white clover, red clover, timothy, bluegrass, orchard grass, brome, dandelion (watch any grazing animal, and you’ll see this is a favorite), plantain, etc etc etc.

Number one grazing MYTH for horse people is that timothy and alfalfa are the plants of choice–emphatically, no! Alfalfa, apart from being poorly suited to the northeast in general, is an upright growing legume, with growth points well within grazing reach of a horses bite. Timothy also will not withstand a close graing by a horse–unlike many grasses that store carbohydrates in their root system, timothy has bulblets at the base of the stems, which dessicate and die when grazed too close. Some plants that can stand up to horse grazing are bluegrass, creeping red fescue, and white clover. You’ll have others, but I wouldn’t want to put a lot of money into buying seed. There are some horse grazing mixes out there that you could check out if you want to try to overseed some thin areas (spring and fall are best).

Weeds. Well, if your horses won’t touch them, try grazing them younger (not always an option, I know), but everything is more palatable when small. Next, try fencing your horses into a smaller area. Think of the paddock as the plate you just gave your two year old (their eating habits are similar). If you give them just enough (small paddock) broccoli(weeds) and chicken, they’ll likely eat a little of it. But if you load them up (big wide open paddock) with piles of broccoli, chicken, potatoes, and chocolate cake, you know they’ll go right for the chocolate and skip the veggies. This is another place where horse grazing can be a challenge… they like and need to move in their paddocks, but I like to think not all day every day. For example, try moving a front fence ahead through a 1/4 acre paddock, giving them just a narrow strip each day, but widening it out till they have the whole piece on day 5. Or fence in long strips.

All this is management of the overall grass stand that will help, but you will still struggle with some of this stuff. Goldenrod absolutely will die out in the first few years if you keep it clipped. It really can’t stand close cutting on any kind of a regular basis. Bedstraw seems to be an ongoing struggle. The best control seems to come with a combination of patience, good fertility, and good management.

We have found clipping to work well to speed things up, especially with horses. One way to maximize the impact of your clipping is to remember two factors: 1) When you clip, think of it as a part of the grazing exposure of a paddock (i.e.: it should also be done within the 3-5 day window of when you graze the paddock), and 2) If you are trying to impact one weed primarily, the best time to clip is when the plant has set flower, but not any seed as yet. If you can see the flower structure, go for it. If the flowers are open and blooming there is likely some seed out there, and some plants will continue to mature seed after cutting, too.

Last thing– i know this is all a little disjointed, but I wanted to throw out a few main ideas–if you can do it, try to get all your different species grazing together, rather than doing leader/follower groups. This doesn’t always work–I know of a horse who killed two sheep (by picking them up in his teeth and shaking them), and I have had horses run sheep through fences when they got bored or hungry. However, if you can make it work, it shortens your grazing time on each paddock, lessens your fencing requirements, and increases competition (which translates into better grazing and more plants eaten). One thing that I had never put together in my head is that while a cow will not graze close to her own pies, and a horse will avoid his own manure, the dung of another species is far less repugnant–cows love all that greenery that springs up around a pile of horse poop, and vice versa! Also, the tighter the grazing area, the better distribution of manure you get.

[ngcmcn]

Just noticed that there was a second page of replies on this thread… So when I said “last message” I was talking about the herbicide and tillage approach, way back when.. That’s what lurking will do for you!

Gwyneth

[jen judkins]

Your thoughts were hugely helpful! Thank you for taking the time…turns out I am doing some things right! Who knew! Lots to learn…thanks for sharing. Jennifer.

PS. I mowed the weed infested pasture a week ago…tuirns out there is plenty of good stuff growing there as I have pretty nice forage peeking through the ‘weed mulch’ already. This might be easier than I thought, lol.

[near horse]

I’ve not tried this but it seemed to make sense. Place your water tank in those places that have severe weed infestations. The hoof traffic will beat them to death. The person that suggested this had a mobile watering/mineral trailer with a water tank on the back and trough on the tailend. Mineral feeders along the side. Mobile (pulled w/ tractor but could be moved with horses) so could use in rotational grazing.

Some thoughts on pastures (comments I’ve heard from various places):
1) never cut and sell hay off your property unless you are ready to buy inputs (fertilizer). You are removing nutrients in the form of the plant. Returning manure to your fields can help balance things out. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to bring in some inexpensive hay (not weedy) and let your animals eat, poop, stomp it into yout field.

2) from Jim Gerrish – “the medium quality grass that I do have is more valuable than the high quality grass that I don’t have”. I probably butchered this but his point is look at what grows well in your area instead of fighting to establish and maintain stands of forage that look good in the catalog but don’t grow well in your area. He points out that “Missouri is not New Zealand” so why am I trying to grow grasses from New Zealand?

3) various grass and legume species have varying characteristics regarding both stand life and ease of establishment. It seems that the long lived stuff isn’t that easy to establish. Example – my neighbor planted trefoil as part of a mixture and thought it had failed (he had only seen sporadic plants over the first 2-4 years.) Then, miraculously, his fields started bursting forth with yellow birdsfoot trefoil.

4) legumes fix nitrogen and grasses will gladly take advantage of that N. So over time, the percentage of legumes in your mixture will decrease as the grass population increases

5) for pasture renovations plant fence posts (ie graze) before you invest in and plant seed.

6) restrict grazing to small patches and move often. Otherwise, you will have animals continue to eat the same plants over and over until they are worn out and die (as someone mentioned earlier).

It’s nice to think of grazing and grass as I look out at 4′ snow in the field with rain coming down:)

[416Jonny]

Geoff, the grasses will try their damnedest to over take the legumes, but I noticed a process that might help keep those legumes going full steam. Just an additional management technique.

If you have a field that’s clipped before winter, in the spring the grasses will shoot up (at least reed canary grass will, it loves the water). Clip or graze the grass down early, well before haying time. The legumes will get a head start for the next growth spurt. Let part of the pasture then go well past seed and clip again. Let the field reseed itself from the legumes. Run this through the whole area in rotation. I think you’ll be pleasently surprised.

My grandfather once took the advice of the USDA and planted the “magic” combination of reed canary grass and bird foot’s trefoil. Of course the canary grass if not keep very short will take over like it’s going out of style. It spread, too. All over the place. But even now, 43 years later, if you clip the canary grass down with a vengance the reasonably well drained field will spring up in a blaze of unbelievable color. I wished I took a picture of the fields I help hay off over the summer. It was unreal. Fields that had smothered by the grass are now COVERED in trefoil, vetch, red clover and even a little ancient timothy. It makes me smile, it even makes me a little warm and fuzzy. Makes me wish I was milking cows so I could take real advantage of all that super protieny goodness.

But you’re right, it’s really nice to think about bright multicolored pastures in winter. Even if all I have here in suburban hell is an inch of snow, three inches of slush, rain and an upcoming hard freeze.

[blue80]

just like to take the opportunity to bump this fantastic thread.

I had a mentor in S. Indiana, in his sixties who I’m sure would have a few things to add. Don was a proud, “grass farmer” as he put it; he jumped at any opportunity to beat up the “corn and bean factories”, his dad taught him how to “farm grass” while working teams of horses in the river bottoms in Kentucky, and Don was extremely influential on my rethinking about soil health/tilth/plant growth. Until then, I had only been a factory farmer laborer, in several areas of North America and Australia.
The first time he inspected our newly purchased farm, he was putt-putting on one of his restored model A’s, and loudly crowed, “there ain’t nothin here that won’t grow!” knowing the farm was loudly known as the “red rock farm” and nobody every remembered a plow being put to it. With his and his friends help, we grew a fantastic crop, without plowing, or using a seed drill. I miss Don, and the way he prided himself on proving me quite young and dumb. He could sure make me laugh…

I have also heard and seen of the benefits of mechanical aeration on pastures, and am looking into utilising this approach to keeping the concrete effect of routine traffic and irrigation on heavy soils, if anyone has inputs in this area. I am wondering whether clipping after grazing with an aerator following on the same pass is an option.

Kevin

[mother katherine]

Just caught this thread and have read it through. I want to join in with saying “amen” to the success of rotating, clipping and broadcasting seed as a good way to refresh worn out pasture without mightily disruptive and, for us, expensive machine driven intervention.
As a rejoinder to the sheep/goat discussion. We have a variety of breeds of sheep. I like the primitive types better for eating a bigger variety of things. My favorites are the little Icelandic sheep; they’ll stay in a marginal pasture and thrive when the “improved” sheep are hollering “there’s nothing to eat!!” Ours are sociable and follow me when we’re moving paddocks; they understand the routine (routine is a big factor in sheep psychology) and willingly join in and know where they’re going. All without dogs or multitudes of “beaters” to keep them on track.
I look forward to adding the working steers to the mix
oxnun

[Author]

Posts