Restoring Pastures

[cakadu]

In trying to rejuvenate and restore the pasture - we are trying to move more towards sustainable grazing management - what did some of you do when you first recognized the situation and tried to make changes?

There are a couple of options - one short-term, which is to take and spray so that everything we don't want is killed and the other is to start to let the pastures rest more so that the grass can out compete the weeds. After several years of drought, the hoppers and severe over-grazing by renters, the pasture is in need of some TLC, which we have started. The weeds don't seem to be as bad this year, but we're wondering which way to go.

What did some of the rest of you do? Of course, spraying without changing the way the pasture is grazed is just a short-term fix. We are looking to become more sustainable over the long term.

I'd be really interested to hear what experiences some of you had and what you found worked and what didn't.

Cheers,

[cswilson]

Our youngest pasture was seeded 12 years ago-the problem with spraying out a pasture is that you are probably killing some of your areas most adapted grasses e.g. quackgrass-it doesn't get root bound it gets nutrient starved. A real heavy manure application will rejuvenate a pasture as good as anything-it not only provides fertilizer-but also a mulch-and enables the plant to rest. The first year cattle will not graze heavily manured pasture very close.We allow that regrowth to build up then turnout there first next spring cows really go after it then.

[grassfarmer]

I've been trying several methods since starting with a badly run down place in 2001, this is what we have found. Heavy manure helps but only once the desired grass species are there to take advantage. Winter feeding and spreading manure are both good for spreading quack grass which suits me just fine. Despite warnings not to work up old pasture we did one small one in 2002 and this spring it is outstanding - way more productive than the other half of the same field. We have rested some of the poorest ones and this year are deferring grazing on some totally because we have plenty grass elsewhere. Management intensive grazing is my favourite, we have set up water lines and portable troughs etc and are currently grazing at a rate of 60 pairs per acre per day which is really helping the place - close to 100% utilisation, manure everywhere, some grass tramped in to make litter. This cell was grazed lightly a month ago and these fields being bared now needn't be grazed again this season because they use such a small acreage a day. Having said that I think I will get a fall graze off them.

[cakadu]

What would you consider a heavy application of manure? We have sheep, so the manure from 300 sheep doesn't even cover 1/2 the quarter as it is. We're just in the process of putting the manure on and you're quite right - the sheep aren't sticking around that area much at all. With the rains we've gotten, we should hopefully get some good use out of the manure that has been composting since last fall.

[cswilson]

Well where we feed in winter we start at far end of pasture and then move closer-to give you a visual-the neighbors say your going to kill your grass it is so thick but my now you can't even see straw patches. A perfect scenario would be to custom winter cows so you could feed over all your pastures every year. I guess any manure is better than none so just try feeding on your worst spots-in regards to weeds-if an animal will graze it it's not a weed in my opinion-weeds are just nature's way of covering bare earth till a more permanent plant establishes.

[grassfarmer]

Cakadu, I had plenty manure available when I moved here - @ 10,000 tons, essentially all the winter production for many years stored up. We ploughed 40ton/acre into a 100 acre stubble field that had been continuos cropped for many years with zero fertiliser added - still produced a pathetic crop in the first year! I have thought about custom winter feeding cswilson as I can buy feed effectively and have the machinery running to feed my own cows anyway - it could be a great system for land improvement. Kind of the opposite of the zero nutrient cycling - selling crop to a feedlot system I took over!

[cswilson]

Yes grassfarmer I'd do it in a minute especially if I could get some clients who calved in may-no amount of free manure would get me calving off the grass lol.I've actually got one guy wants me to run his cows for him but wants to calve in March-no thank you.

[pandiana]

My approach to rejuvenating pasture has changed over time to accomodate stocking rate as well as pasturing both sheep and cattle. Some methods I don't think are particularily conducive to sheep grazing as fencing is a problem, for me at least.

We started out about 14 years ago strip grazing. We would move the temporary fence 16' by as much as a quarter mile every day or two depending on the number of head. Labor intensive but extremely effective. Cows loved it! They would all move to the fence, manure behind them. They ate everything before it was moved again. Anything left was trampled in with the manure as they moved forward. We back fenced so that pastures started to regrow within days of being grazed. This went a long way towards initial improvements. As our cattle numbers increased this became more difficult so we have partitioned pastures according to topography, access to water and grass type to accomodate groups for shorter periods of rotation. We have fenced off riparian areas but still graze these periodically during times of least stress to them 'or' during great stress to me such as drought.

We try to start grazing with at least 4 inches of cover and try to leave some cover during fast growing periods when all the grass seems to be threatening to mature at once. Just clipping the grass uniformly helps stimulate fresh growth and keeps it growing for later in the season.
I agree that manure is a good management tool. The problem is having enough pasture in reserve to rest some. A luxury I have long since outgrown.
And of course, drought changes everything although I expect that my healthier grass has been sustained better than chronically overgrazed grass would be.

Sheep are a problem for me. My neighbor stip grazed sheep quite successfully for years. The sheep did exceptionally well. I found that the sheep had to be trained to the fence with a fencer with at least 6000Volts in order to get their attention. Because we have about 19 miles of fence on one quarter, its hard to keep voltage high enough without grass, trees, etc. drawing down the jolts. Once they started ducking through the fence the wool coats the wire and that was it, a well insulated passage. We eventually fenced off a portion with hog wire and I am sorry to say have let them have their way.

[cswilson]

My kids used to have a small flock of ewes(30 head) they just ran with cowherd if the cows stayed in the sheep did too even with one wire electric fences. I think the sheep had bonded with the cows. Since pasture calving we've gone to bigger paddocks-we actually almost drift graze then-leave gates open so cows can go back and pick fresh calves up after we've moved-the trick to moving big bunches of cows with fresh calves is go slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.Sometimes I'll sneak out and open the gate to the next paddock so cows kinda move themselves at their own pace.

[grassfarmer]

Pandiana, there is an interesting story in Stockman Grassfarmer current issue about intensive sheep grazing. An outfit in Mexico runs 4200 ewes and 800 rams on 200 acres of irrigated alfalfa. They direct market 9000 head a year and make a 7 figure income (US $)per year!
They have predator proof pens that the animals are in over night and they only actually graze 5 hours a day - very labour intensive but maybe worth the work given the huge scale?

[cswilson]

I read that story too grassfarmer sounds like more fun than i can stand lol.

[nerves]

Caduka one of the first things I would do is go into the pasture and identiy what varitey of grass and legumes you have left. Look at the low spots and high ground. Try figure out what varitey you have the most is it fesque quack grass clover canary grass that type of thing. Next I would take a spade out and dig a few holes in the high spots and low spots. Take a side view of the plants root systems how far down do they go? look for earthworms or any other kinds of bugs in the soil. Look to see how much top soil there is there may be only inches or there may be feet. After I have looked at those things You have to decide how much work do I want to put into this? What are my goals? Do I want high performance pastures or do I want plants that are tough and hardy. What goes well with the animals that you are raising? A good rule of thumb is that plants with narrow leaves and not much folage mature fast. Plants with large folage absorbe sunlight better so they have better root systems and mature later. These are the things I would look at first good luck.

[cakadu]

I guess we're lucky with our sheep - they are hair sheep, so no wool to insulate them from the fence. Experience has shown us that once they get zapped, they tend to stay away from the fence.

We're also lucky in that they really like to eat the broad-leaf weeds and thistles. Even stinging nettle is no problem for them - they let it get to a certain stage and the next day there is only "3-inch sticks" left. Pig weed they will kill each other for - don't ask me why - they just do.

We need to go out and have a look at what is there. I'm actually going to a tame pasture school and thinking about a range management class as well, so we'll know what we should do soon.

Thanks for the pointers - we want to get into this sustainable grazing management and likely will look at putting in grass/forage species that the sheep like.

[rsmith]

Any suggestions on controlling and restoring pasture with areas of yellow foxtail? About 25% of our pasture is now contaminated by foxtail since the drought. It's concentrated in the low areas. Will it work to spray it out and reseed just those areas? Thanks for any help you folks can offer.

[nerves]

rsmith my question to you would be what other plants are there? do you rotate pastures? how rough is the land what type of soil is it? We used to have that in our pastures many years ago don"t see it anymore. The weeds we have a tough time with are buttercup and canada thistle.