Spring Discing

[Tim Harrigan]

Mark, yes that is a good book, I have it and it really helped me think about pastures in a different way. Your approach is a good one, it does take some patience and rotating and not overgrazing are important parts of it. Are you feeding your own hay? Sometimes you can import some heavy weed seed loads when you bring in hay. I like to have about 40% legume and some areas have that, some do not so that is where adding desireable species can speed things up a bit. I have continued to see real improvements in the plant diversity and quality by managing the grazing and clipping the weeds. Goldenrod responds to clipping, not every plant does. Multi flora rose is one and this year I am going to spot spray to do my best to eliminate it. Goats would probably get after it pretty good, but I do not have fences to hold in goats.

[near horse]

I think in the west, with our limited to non existent summer/fall precip, pasture/hay ground renovation is “different”. But I do think Tim’s comment regarding N addition is a good one. If you’re trying to get some new plants started in an existing stand, you don’t want to “encourage” the established plants to grow rapidly and outcompete the new, less competitive planting.

Much of our “soil seed bank” consists of the undesirable plants rather than stuff we want to see. So we’re not at the “manage to maintain” level in our pasture community, yet.

Tim – the N. Dakota guys were seeding ground that was part of a crop rotation system (mostly). So some of this was providing grazing, cover and some soil benefits instead of fallowing. Let me see if I can find one of the links associated with the practice.

[Tim Harrigan]

@near horse 33924 wrote:

I think in the west, with our limited to non existent summer/fall precip, pasture/hay ground renovation is “different”. But I do think Tim’s comment regarding N addition is a good one. If you’re trying to get some new plants started in an existing stand, you don’t want to “encourage” the established plants to grow rapidly and outcompete the new, less competitive planting.

Much of our “soil seed bank” consists of the undesirable plants rather than stuff we want to see. So we’re not at the “manage to maintain” level in our pasture community, yet.

Tim – the N. Dakota guys were seeding ground that was part of a crop rotation system (mostly). So some of this was providing grazing, cover and some soil benefits instead of fallowing. Let me see if I can find one of the links associated with the practice.

Yes, I am sure you are very different, but some of the same basic principles apply: 1) the seed needs contact with the soil, sunlight and water, 2) a chance for the crop to recover after grazing, 3) a balance of nutrients and soil structure to support crop growth, and 4) soil biological activity. The rest are details.

Geoff, I thought the N.D. guys were working with permanent pasture. Very different from what we are used to here.

[Ed Thayer]

Over grazing is my fault. I need to do a better job of rotating the horses about the pasture. When they graze it down to 1″ the weeds have little competition and try to take over. This is good soil and has been productive in the past. I think a little seed and some chain harrow will work it into the slots I have cut with the disc. Then I will use the electric fence and step in posts to rotate them areound and keep them from over grazing.

[near horse]

Tim – my point was that our ppt pattern is unpredictable to non-existent during the time after soil dries out enough to seed. So soil moisture post-seeding and post emergence can be a problem.

Ed – If memory serve me right, the rule of thumb for grazing is to move off when the grass gets down to 4 in height. Easier said than done sometimes.

[Andy Carson]

I also found the grazing “rules” to be very very difficult to follow with horses. In contrast, I have found them pretty easy to follow with cattle in small rotated sections. The cattle have a much reduced tendancy to overgraze favorite areas and skip over “latrine” areas. My horses would sometimes being pulling grass out by the roots when there is 10 inch tall green fresh grass 100 feet away. Then they started running for no particular reason, sometimes skidding this way and that on soft ground turning beautiful productive pasture into muddy wastelands. The pasturing of horses, and thier tendancy to waste grass in various ways, was/is probably my least favorite aspect of horse ownership. Sorry if this sidetracks the thread, I just wanted to get that thought out, and this thread was kinda going in all sorts of directions anyway.

[near horse]

No problem Andy – I think your grazing experience fits here. IME – grazers will select the young, actively growing plants (species) over those even just a little more mature. We saw it with cattle who picked tall fescue over orchard grass in a pasture. The fescue was shorter, finer and less mature than the orchard grass, although the orchard g was only about 8-10 inches tall itself. It really opened my eyes to the “mob grazing” concept – give them no opportunity to select by restricting paddock size to very small. That’s the “management intensive” part of MIG. Horses SHOULD operate in a similar fashion if restricted but I do recall comments regarding horse pasturing in any but the dry times as detrimental to the paddock’s health via hoof damage.

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