A good pasture is the foundation of any profitable livestock operation. It provides the forages needed to not only sustain but also allow the livestock to grow. Having enough forages for all of the animals is important to keep your feed costs down to a manageable level. However, keeping a pasture at this level can be a little complicated.
Despite your best efforts, a good pasture can end up going bad on you. We have all seen it before: certain invasive species somehow make it into your pasture and overruns everything. They then choke out the forages that your animals need meaning you will either need to supplement or reduce your numbers. Another thing that can happen is that you start seeing bare spots showing up more and more.
Needless to say, people are not too happy when facing scenarios like this. In fact, people tend to dread it when they think that they will need to renovate their pasture. They think it will require a tremendous amount of amount and equal amount of money to get it back to form. What if I told you there were some ways to do this without breaking the bank? Here are some things to consider before shelling out a lot of money to fix your pasture.
Why does a pasture lose quality?
I suppose in order to pick the right thing to do to fix your pasture we should first go over what can cause it. There are a number of reasons a pasture can become less productive. Whether it receives too much (not here lately) or not enough water is one such reason. Another possible cause is not using the right forage species. Poor grazing or mowing management is another possible cause of poor pasture.
Overgrazing is one way that can cause a pasture to become less productive. This is especially true when you have high-stress conditions such as drought as we have experienced. When the animals graze too much of the forage it is not able to grow back as quickly as needed so production suffers. If it is bad enough then you will see an influx of invasive weed species come in and take over. You should always wait till the forages have grown to 8-10″ before letting the animals graze and then take them off when it reaches 4-6″ in height.
Weed control
Staying on the subject of weeds improper weed control is another issue that can affect quality. This can be something as simple as misidentifying the type that you are wanting to control. Another problem could be applying the herbicide at the wrong time which is just wasting money. If you are not sure it is always good to have someone more knowledgeable, such as your local extension agent, take a look and identify the weed.
Now that we have gone over a couple of the causes let’s look at what you can do. This is the part that most people do not like because they think it will require too much. Renovating a pasture does not always mean that you have to reseed. In fact, that should be considered the last potential step in the process.
Start from the ground up
The first step in improving any pasture is to first fix the soil. While forages are the foundation of an operation the soil is the literal foundation of forage production. If the soil is not right then no amount of seeding or even fertilizing for that matter will improve anything. Soil is a natural body composed of mineral and organic solids, gases, liquids, and living organisms. According to Chris Teutsch, a forage extension specialist with the University of Kentucky, healthy pasture soil should have about a ton of bacteria, a ton of actinomycetes, 3 tons of fungi, and over 600 lbs of earthworms per acre.
The thing to remember is that plant production cannot be greater than what is allowed by the most limiting of essential plant growth factors. In order to find what you will need to do you will need to perform a soil test. The results of this test will tell you where your soil currently stands and what steps you need to take to improve it. Also, since conditions are always changing you will need to do a soil test every 3 years.
Do not forget the pH
An improper soil pH is a major limiting factor in forage production. Having it in the wrong range will reduce nutrient availability and nitrogen fixation by legumes. It is recommended to have a soil pH of 5.8-6 for pure grass stands, 6-6.4 for grass-clover stands, and 6.5-6.8 for grass-alfalfa stands. If it is needed the results of your test will tell you how much lime will be needed to get it to these ranges.
Liming pastures will not only neutralize soil acidity but will also supply calcium and magnesium. To fertilize, you will need to apply lime months in advance. This is because it will take a little bit of time for it to fully absorb into the soil. Otherwise, you could be putting fertilizer out that will not be utilized, and with today’s prices than can be expensive.
Consider using legumes
If you are wanting to have the best pasture possible then biodiversity might be the best option. Having a variety is important because what one species lacks another could make up for. Using legumes could also be of benefit because of the nitrogen that they return to the soil.
Now it might be tempting to overload a pasture with legumes because of this but that is not a good idea. Legumes should make up 20-30% of the total forages in the pasture. This is one of those cases where too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
When it comes to legumes there are many options to go with that are either warm-season or cool-season. Among the most well-known is alfalfa, though it requires good drainage and Boron supplements to grow well. Frost seeding red or white clover is another option and they generally result in the greatest success. If your pasture is lacing in fertility then using annual lespedeza might be the better option.
Be patient
The thing to remember here is that using legumes will not start supplying enough nitrogen overnight. Most of the transfer that will occur happens when the animal defecates through manure or urine. It also occurs when the legume and roots die and decompose. Having a strong nitrogen cycle in a pasture will take several years to develop and maintain.
Good pasture management goes a long way
As I mentioned above how you manage your pasture will play a major role in its productivity. Allowing enough growth to occur before grazing will keep the forage healthy and growing. It is the same with the distribution of grazing.
Animals like cattle tend to stay pretty close to areas like water sources. What happens is that they will heavily graze the areas close to those while not touching others. The goal is to get them to go to those other areas to utilize all of the areas in your pasture. A well-managed pasture system will cycle 80-90% of the nutrients back to the pasture in dung and urine. If you are interested I go over how to do this in a previous post “Better grazing with supplements”.
Even using hay correctly could even affect how much is in your soil. It can be dangerous to remove hay from a field and not feed it in the same spot, because it can rapidly reduce potassium levels. Many of your common hay varieties will remove nearly 60 lbs of potassium. This can be helpful if you are buying hay from somewhere else and bringing it to your place. Every ton of hay is going to have about $78 worth of nutrients when going by today’s fertilizer prices.
