seeding oats and peas in organic pasture

[Rainer]

Our place is certified organic and was all seeded to Timothy by the previous owner. We were haying for 4 years, but for the last 7 years just did Management Intensiv Grazing. Over 60% of the stands converted by themselves to a thick(no ground visible)mixture of clover and nativ grasses, what we can graze 3 - 4 times or hay some fields after the first grazing (to get rid of brush,too).Now we have two reasons to plant some fields: 1. We raise Tamworth pigs on pasture, but supplement them in winter with oats and peas and we pay too much for trucking them to BC. Also could the pigs harvest most of it by themselves(electric fence).
2. Some fields are too rough, so in this case I think I should disc them and bring the field into shape.
But what can I do, if the field is in good condition? Does no till work without Round Up , maybe after grazing the stand too low?
Can I broad cast the peas or oats and get them tramped in by the cows? (We custom graze groups of 400 head, so I could apply heavy pressure)
Any suggestions or experiences are appreciated
bigbear

[grassfarmer]

I have seen a field that was "reseeded" from an old hay mixture into straight alfalfa using custom yearlings. During a wet July they broadcast the alfalfa ahead of very heavy grazing (ie turning it into a soup about 3 inches deep) They got a great stand of alfalfa but I don't know if it would have worked so well if the weather had turned dry straight after the seeding. You might have had a field of soil turned to concrete.

In Scotland they used to have the Hunter strip seeder that basically cut out strips about 1.5 inches wide and 6 inches apart and dropped seed into the slots. The management for this was to pre graze the pasture really short. (sheep or horses rather than cattle to get it shorter) It worked if you were seeding plants with an aggressive enough growth pattern to get established ahead of the old pasture regrowth. It was important not to add fertiliser at seeding time as this aided the old stand rather than the new.
I don't see why this couldn't work in Canada with a zero till drill putting a fast growing cereal into an old pasture stand, don't know anything about peas. Much of the research work being done on minimum tillage pasture reseeding seems to be sponsored by chemical companies, hence the bias towards using Roundup.

[Rainer]

thanks very much grassfarmer, without your response there would be no answer or experience out there, I guess.The Hunter strip seeder typed into Google produced a lot of information. I really like the idea of letting the cattle do the work and it works really well in reestablishing a field or getting rid of weed patches (mineral feeder in thistle patch).But with the peas I am afraid that they break to much, so I will just try a small field this year.