Pre seed burn off with animals?

[Sheepwheat]

If one has their perennial weeds controlled, and all one is burning off is annuals and volunteers, why couldn’t one seed, and send out the sheep for a few days to do your burn off, pre emerge?

I think it would be safer on cereal seeded acres as the packing action and ridges getting knocked down could affect depth I suppose. But sheep are not cows, they don’t make big divots. It’s more of a pitter patter of little feet. Sheep would nip the weeds right to the ground also with no problem, unlike cows. Get a bit of grazing, get a bit of plant available fertilizer spread out there.

I dunno, just wondering. Mallee?

[Landdownunder]

Weeds tend to regrow not actually killing them.

But if your using something aggressive like a plough works a treat.

[Landdownunder]

Austranada might chip in or woodland etc

[Guest]

Sheep I can and do appreciate your holistic approach here. Couple of things come to mind. I guess you have to consider the impact the sheep would have and to me that's a function obviously of how long you would leave them on the field but also how wet and what soil type you're working with. I've seen that done here in the west but there's a lot of variables. For one thing we seed going into winter so crops get a slow start ,and compete less with weeds in some instances. Common row spacing here is 12 inch. If you're on 6 or 8 that makes a difference in terms of canopy cover time.
Sheep can graze volunteer wheat for instance down to near the ground but the growing point is still below ground at that stage so as mallee said the plant will survive and regrow fairly quick as your temp warms up as opposed to cooling off. I think you could do it successfully if weed population isn't too dense but you may still likely need to depend on selective post emergents. In coastal reliable rainfall areas here some guys seed a winter wheat right about now and graze it a couple times and get good feed value, weed control, then let it vernalize and grow out to harvest the seed in Nov/Dec.

[Sheepwheat]

Weeds tend to regrow not actually killing them.

But if your using something aggressive like a plough works a treat.

Yeah, certain weeds will regrow for sure. I just wonder if this should be offset by the timing. If sheep grazed until the day before emergence, crop would really have a jump. With pressed herb burn off, same thing, weed seeds would be emerging with the crop. Regrowth of weeds would be faster after getting nipped off.

Yeah maybe it’s a dream that doesn’t stack up now that I think about it. Might have to do a trial.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I like the idea, if nothing else you can extend your grazing season slightly earlier. Without harming your pastures by grazing them too early. When it works out, I have run the cows through freshly seeded fields to clean up whatever growth there might be around the edges or quack grass that was already sprayed. Without any ill effects, on our clay which is very prone to compaction problems.
Biggest problem I can see is our extremely short seeding window, we wouldn't have the luxury of spreading the seeding dates out to accommodate the sheeps culinary schedule. Would need to have a massive number of sheep per acre to cover any significant acres all at once.

[foragefarmer]

My first question would be with large acres to put in the spring, and the big concern of mother nature always being a threat who would have time to move sheep field to field?

Not to mention that land can be spread out several miles.

What happens to the weeds they don't eat, do they stop growing?

With the cost of inputs farmers need to ensure they get their seeding done before rain delays.

Might work before seeding a garden I guess.

[Sheepwheat]

My first question would be with large acres to put in the spring, and the big concern of mother nature always being a threat who would have time to move sheep field to field?

Not to mention that land can be spread out several miles.

What happens to the weeds they don't eat, do they stop growing?

With the cost of inputs farmers need to ensure they get their seeding done before rain delays.

Might work before seeding a garden I guess.

I get what you’re saying, forage but I don’t seed big acres. Moving sheep is pretty easy. Open the gate and yell, “sheep sheep”. And they come running! Ha. Anyhow, I’m a tiny little farm by today’s standards. Logistics for me would be easy enough. I’m mostly concerned about weed control efficacy.

[foragefarmer]

I get what you’re saying, forage but I don’t seed big acres. Moving sheep is pretty easy. Open the gate and yell, “sheep sheep”. And they come running! Ha. Anyhow, I’m a tiny little farm by today’s standards. Logistics for me would be easy enough. I’m mostly concerned about weed control efficacy.

Use Glyphosate and get the job done right, the size of the farm has nothing to do with it. So that excuse is baseless.

Do you want to fix the issue of put duct tape on it?

[Blaithin]

I think it’s worth a trial to see SheepWheat. Biggest hurdle I see first and foremost, is what AB5 brings up, you’d need a LOT of sheep to get it done within the small window.

So start small and try a small section of a field cross fenced and compare it to the rest of the field. Control (normal) vs Sheeps.

It’ll have minimal pressure of trying to get them to eat it fast enough to cover all acres and should give a nice idea of how the regrowth would really act instead of just hypothesizing. It’ll probably give a better idea of what plants respond good to it and what don’t. Your volunteer wheat comes back but maybe the mares tail doesn’t sort of thing.

I know guys that have sprayed pasture with citric acid to knock it back so that they can seed into it and give the seeds a chance to get a good start before the original plants bounce back. Seems to work a treat in the right circumstances. Slightly different idea as they aren’t trying to kill the pasture, however that just means they don’t mix the citric acid too strong.

[Sheepwheat]

Use Glyphosate and get the job done right, the size of the farm has nothing to do with it. So that excuse is baseless.

Do you want to fix the issue of put duct tape on it?

What the heck man. You said it would be impossible on large spread out acreages, and I agreed. And I stated my farm is small enough i think I could make it work.

You brought up farm size, I countered, and now you are there being snide again.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Since we seem to farm in similar climates, where water is rarely the limiting factor, and cooler climates where we are unable to seat really early, The annual weeds really aren't a big economic problem in a competitive crop. If you have that perennial weeds under control, and you seed barley or oats later in the spring with close row spacing, it will compete the annual weeds quite successfully most years.
Different story on a dry year for a dryer climate or with very low nutrient levels.
I don't remember, are you doing full tillage or no till?

If the goal is to get more grazing for the cheap, I would instead look at what other species you could see the year before that might provide early season grazing and out compete the weeds. But some of those options aren't very cost-effective.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What the heck man. You said it would be impossible on large spread out acreages, and I agreed. And I stated my farm is small enough i think I could make it work.

You brought up farm size, I countered, and now you are there being snide again.

I think someone is just upset that we dared to discuss agricultural topics. Some people just need scandals and controversy.
I can't see any value whatsoever in his contributions to this thread.

[Sheepwheat]

Since we seem to farm in similar climates, where water is rarely the limiting factor, and cooler climates where we are unable to seat really early, The annual weeds really aren't a big economic problem in a competitive crop. If you have that perennial weeds under control, and you seed barley or oats later in the spring with close row spacing, it will compete the annual weeds quite successfully most years.
Different story on a dry year for a dryer climate or with very low nutrient levels.
I don't remember, are you doing full tillage or no till?

If the goal is to get more grazing for the cheap, I would instead look at what other species you could see the year before that might provide early season grazing and out compete the weeds. But some of those options aren't very cost-effective.

I’m no till. Die hard no till. I like what it has done for my soil! I’ve used fall rye for grazing. It’s so competitive in spring it needs no herbicide most of the time. Too bad it’s not a more mainstream and marketable crop.

For me I think the main goal is weed control as another week grazing for the sheep isn’t a whole lot of advantage.

[WiltonRanch]

When we were tillage and doing fallow it was a common practice to drop straw at harvest and run the cows through it in the fall and again in the spring. These fields would be later fallowed for the season. Quack was a problem then as post or preharvest glyphosate wasn’t a thing so you took advantage of that free grass in the spring lol. I have an aversion to sending cows out on stubble in the spring. At least in the tillage days the ground would get so hard if moisture conditions were just so. I’ve noticed since we’ve been no till a number of years this isn’t as much a problem anymore. One thing I find where we have a lot of residue it is amazing how a herd of cows on a quarter make it passable with the drill.