Frost seeding a tired pasture

[BlackWillowFarm]

It's time for me to think about frost seeding my worn out pasture to give it a boost. I will be pasturing cows and horses together this year for the first time. Thinking about a mixture of:

Orchard grass - 5lbs/acre
Perennial Rye Grass - endophyte free 5lbs/acre
Red Clover - 8lbs/acre

I've read that the clover can be a bloat problem for the cow. How much is too much in the pasture for my cows?

I could use Ladino Clover in place of Red.

Also, can anyone tell me about Ladino Clover vs Red Clover?

I should also mention that the field had Alfalfa planted and that's why I'm not including it in my seeding plans.

[TSYORK]

I was told 2 pounds of clover per acre is enough to give forage but at that rate will help to not bloat the cows. I mix Ladino and Crimson clover.

[wigg]

I have tried the Orchard grass with no luck. I think it is the size and shape of the seed. Timothy, alfalfa, and clover type of seed seems to work better for frost seeding. At least, that has been my experience when overseeding my fescue pasture. The timothy didn't work as well as the legumes.

[haypoint]

Soil type and water table are important factors to consider.
Allsack clover is good in wetter areas. Birdsfoot trefoil works in heavy soil and low ph.
If you have thick grass, a couple pounds of seed might help freshen it up. If you have lots of weeds, 10 to 20 pounds might be needed.

I'd suggest a variety of clovers and grasses. Not just because a variety is good for your cows (which it is) but because the varying soil conditions in a field, different varieties will succeed in different areas.

What's your soil type? What is your soil's ph? How far north in west Michigan are you? What types of vegetation are you broadcasting this seed into? A lot depends on if this is going to be a wet spring, or a hot summer or any other set of variables.

[BlackWillowFarm]

The pasture is high and dry, light sandy soil. It's been overgrazed repeatedly and now the weeds are overtaking the area. I mowed it last fall to help with weed control. I spread lime every year.

I wish I had a crystal ball to predict the upcoming weather. I would love to know how much hay I'll be taking off the fields this year.

The biggest question I have is how much clover is too much? I don't want my cows to bloat on too rich of a pasture. If I spread 8lbs to the acre and it all grows up, will that be too heavy on the clover for cows?

[Razorback21]

I like the two lbs an acre...don't want a pure stand of clover. Here where I'm at, ladino clover frost seeds well, re-seeds itself, and is a good nitrogen fixer. Red clover seems to die out pretty quick for me. Perennial Rye is a good compliment for Ladino.

[RosewoodfarmVA]

If the field is overgrazed, with suppressed or killed good plants and only weeds thriving, I would recommend plowing and disking repeatedly to kill and break up the roots of the established weeds, then this fall reseed and cultipack to a suitable mixture for your area. Overseeding/frost seeding is great to improve a decent stand, but in your case by this summer the seeded grass/clover will have no chance competing with established weeds, especially in an untilled-tramped down packed soil. You'll lose 80% of your seeded plants in the first year. You need to kill the weeds, and loosen the soil deeper than just frost could do, then your seedlings will have a chance. This can only be accomplished by tilling repeatedly.

Also, regardless of whether you frost seed or till/reseed, you MUST keep the animals off of it this year, or they will destroy the weak root systems either by trampling/pugging or by pulling them out altogether when they are grazing. Seeding grass within an established pasture will provide an attractive, tasty new growth that they will love, causing them to graze only your newly seeded stuff while leaving the tougher old plants. Horses especially MUST be kept off of it for atleast a year as they will absolutely destroy any young plants and seedlings. You might be able to rotationally graze for a short time during a drier spell so that roots aren't pulled up, and if there is enough grass for them not to overgraze it less than 6 inches or so. Preferably graze the animals somewhere else this year and cut it only for hay.

My recommendation is to till repeatedly this spring, sow a summer cover crop to shade out any weeds that have survived, then till and seed about august-september giving the plants time to get established before heavy winter. 'Course planting times are different seeing that I'm in VA, but you get the idea. Spring seeding may be OK if you get good rains all summer.

After you get a good stand of grass/clover, rotationally graze it keeping in mind the health of the plants, not the animals' needs, and you should be able to preserve and even improve your pasture over time.

Just my 2cents ( $0.0002 with inflation). Nathan

[haypoint]

Was the Fall mowing done before the weeds went to seed?

[BlackWillowFarm]

Originally Posted by haypoint

Was the Fall mowing done before the weeds went to seed?

Yes, I got to most of it before the weeds went to seed. There was a patch in the back that I didn't get to in time, so I just left it.

Originally Posted by RosewoodfarmVA

If the field is overgrazed, with suppressed or killed good plants and only weeds thriving,.......

It's about 60% grass, the rest is weedy. The horses stayed fat on it all summer.

Originally Posted by RosewoodfarmVA

I would recommend plowing and disking repeatedly to kill and break up the roots of the established weeds, then this fall reseed and cultipack to a suitable mixture for your area. Overseeding/frost seeding is great to improve a decent stand, but in your case by this summer the seeded grass/clover will have no chance competing with established weeds, especially in an untilled-tramped down packed soil. You'll lose 80% of your seeded plants in the first year. You need to kill the weeds, and loosen the soil deeper than just frost could do, then your seedlings will have a chance. This can only be accomplished by tilling repeatedly.

I will keep this in mind. It is one of the options I have considered. It's probably the best one too, just don't know if I can give up my pasture this year. It would mean all new fencing for the second pasture and it's not in the budget right now. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of being "pennywise and pound foolish" a couple years in a row and didn't fertilize like I should have. Now I'm paying the price.

Originally Posted by RosewoodfarmVA

Also, regardless of whether you frost seed or till/reseed, you MUST keep the animals off of it this year, or they will destroy the weak root systems either by trampling/pugging or by pulling them out altogether when they are grazing. Seeding grass within an established pasture will provide an attractive, tasty new growth that they will love, causing them to graze only your newly seeded stuff while leaving the tougher old plants. Horses especially MUST be kept off of it for atleast a year as they will absolutely destroy any young plants and seedlings. You might be able to rotationally graze for a short time during a drier spell so that roots aren't pulled up, and if there is enough grass for them not to overgraze it less than 6 inches or so. Preferably graze the animals somewhere else this year and cut it only for hay.

Yes, I might have to do that. I can put up a temp fence that my horses and cows do respect. Problem for me is I will be boarding three horses coming in April and I don't know if they could be trusted with the temp fence or not. Would hate for them to get loose on me.

Originally Posted by RosewoodfarmVA

My recommendation is to till repeatedly this spring, sow a summer cover crop to shade out any weeds that have survived, then till and seed about august-september giving the plants time to get established before heavy winter. 'Course planting times are different seeing that I'm in VA, but you get the idea. Spring seeding may be OK if you get good rains all summer.

After you get a good stand of grass/clover, rotationally graze it keeping in mind the health of the plants, not the animals' needs, and you should be able to preserve and even improve your pasture over time.

Just my 2cents ( $0.0002 with inflation). Nathan

Just learned about rotational grazing and will try it for the first time this summer. I want to learn all I can about "grass farming". This year I'll begin by trying to fix the mistakes of the last few years. I just started all this five years ago. It's all pretty new to me.

Good advice Nathan. I appreciate your 2 cents. Thanks!

[Chixarecute]

Weeds can sometimes be a sign of overgrazing...the "desired" plants can be unable to keep up with the grazing demands.

Question for you - why are you spreading LIME every year? Lime is slow acting, and is a soil amendment, tho' not really a fertilizer. If alfalfa was growing well, the pH may have been fine...5.5-6.5.

If you haven't done so recently, soil testing is a good investment. Check with your feed mill or Extension agent. The test results will give recommendations for fertilization based on your soil needs and use/demands. (ie pasture, row crops, hay, etc.).

Rotational grazing is a great idea, but you may still have to do some clipping while the fields are re-establishing.

[RosewoodfarmVA]

I just hate to see you throwing away seed (read big $$) without proper prepararation before hand to make the seedlings thrive, and also see that (big $$$) seedlings trampled/killed through improper management after seeding. Reseeding is only a small part of the big picture. That is, your field didn't just "get weedy" it got that way through management issues, either overgrazing, not clipping weeds, animals grazing their preferred plants and eventually killing them, poor soil fertility, or other animal damage. Without thinking about these issues, and how to correct them in the future, I think frost seeding would be throwing away money. Once you plan how to properly manage the pasture, THEN put your $$ into reseeding.

If you said that there was enough grass to keep your animals healthy all summer, and that there is 60% grass there, I feel that with partitioning your pasture and rotating the animals repeatedly through summer and routinely clipping weeds, you should be able to increase the quality and quantity of good plants without even reseeding! Perhaps spraying the worst of the weeds with 2-4-d, and preventing damage to the grasses, they should thrive.

The worst you can do is keep an animal on it continuously! They always choose the tender, best plants and leave the rest. If you partition it and rotate, force them by confining them in a small enough place, they will not only eat the grass but be forced to eat the weeds too. This is not harmful for them! Then move them elsewhere and allow the grass to regrow to 16-20 inches, giving it plenty of time to store root reserves. Over time the grasses should overtake the weeds, as long as you NEVER allow the grass to be overgrazed, eaten short, hoof damaged during wet weather, or pulled up by grazing during soggy ground conditions. Two of the above 4 things deals with wet weather. Don't allow any animal on pasture when it's wet! They will both damage roots and pull up young plants altogether!

Gotta run. sorry for being long winded. Glad to hear you are trying to improve your situation. Farming isn't about growing animals, it's about growing grass! Nathan

[agmantoo]

Ditto what Nathan said in his last post. If you have not read this thread (any ideas for converting to rotational grazing?) here on this forum it would be a good introduction to rotational grazing.

[BlackWillowFarm]

After reading what Nathan and Agmantoo have said maybe I should re-think this thing a little. Agmantoo, I was hoping you might find this thread. I've been reading (Any ideas for converting to rotational grazing?) and I'm really happy to have your input for my situation.

I don't have a lot of land, 13 acres, but it's all hayfield except for the 3/4 acre yard around our house. I fenced off 3 1/2 acres as permanent pasture four years ago for two horses. Well, two horses became four, then in 2007 we had a severe drought which pretty much did in the pasture for the remainder of that year. I'm back to only two horses, but now I have a cow and a calf and they will all be grazing together.

Last summer, 2008, we had another long dry spell and the permanent pasture really started feeling the pressure of being grazed 24/7 all summer.

The soil here is light. It's a sandy loam, I think. As long as we get rain, I have good growth, but my fields are the first to go dry if we don't get regular rainfall. The last two summers were pretty hard on everything.

I have red sorrel growing throughout the hayfields/pasture. I mowed most of it down, but some came back last summer.

I went back and read what I wrote about the lime. I realized what I wrote was wrong. We've lived here 5 years and spread lime/fertilized 3 of those five years. My DH has a better memory for that stuff than I do.

Soil tests show we need lime. I use pelleted lime and put down 200lbs to the acre. I use pelleted lime because I can do it myself.

I limed and fertilized everything last year before it got dry. I was hoping to renovate the pasture by frost seeding this year and go to rotational grazing. Now I'm not sure this is the best plan. It's what I can do on my own. I don't own the equipment to plow, disc and drag. I can get it done, but I have to hire someone to do it. I was hoping for the easy way out, I guess. I've read a lot about it and it all sounded so good.

[agmantoo]

BlackWillowFarm, I think you will be impressed with what you can accomplish by rotational grazing. There are some issues that will rquire addressing. You need to take a soil sample and let that sample determine the amount of lime and fertilizer you need. Get the PH correct ASAP. Your frequent application of 200 lbs of pelletized lime could be far below what you need. IMO , it will be. Next the horse issue. If the horses are to graze the rotational acres they need limited access to where they are on the pasture only when eating. They need a separate loafing area to be confined to during the bulk of each day. Horses are just detrimental to pastures and particularly when confined to smaller areas. Since you will soon be coming out of Winter I certainly would not let the horses on the acreage that is to be upgraded and possibly converted to rotational grazing. If you want to do some frost seeding I would only suggest buying some Ladino clover at the rate of a couple of lbs per acre and hand applying that shortly. When the soil is dry enough to avoid compaction by mechanical equipment You need the pasture area mowed to about 3 inches to get what trash is there cut off and you need to pull a harrow or something similar to distribute the manure that exists. If you need some grass in bare areas you could consider perennial rye grass and some fescue but you need to somehow get the seed covered. I would not plow or disc. Your best soil is on top of the ground and that is where the seed need to be to placed, in that dirt. A sod drill is ideal but probably not available. An aerator run lightly creating some small pockets in the soil and broadcasting seed so that some settle in those pockets could work. You are not going to get much establishment on new seeded areas and grazing that area at the same time even with rotational grazing. The best opportunity is to get the best of what is already there growing and controlling the weeds and not abusing the forage. Management through rotational grazing, mechanical clipping and adequate nutrients will create a productive pasture beyond your imagination. Have you considered increasing the pasture acreage and shrinking the hay acres? It is my opinion that if you would allocate more area to rotational grazing then you could extend the grazing months thus reducing the hay needs to the point that you could carry more animals cheaper and just buy the hay needed to get you through the most severe weather.

[BlackWillowFarm]

Agmantoo, I want to read up on how to do this, can you recommend a good book(s) on the subject?

I could expand the pasture, in fact, I've thought about it. I could increase the pasture to seven acres. That would leave me with four acres for hayfield. I can usually start limited grazing in late April and have to pull them off the pasture in late September. I put up hay for seven months of the year. I figure one bale per animal, so at my current rate, I would need four hundred bales to get through a winter.

With rotational grazing on seven acres of pasture, how much longer into the fall, after the grass stops growing should I be able to keep them grazing and off the hay? I would be happy to get another month off it. If I could get more that would be even better.

The animals are off the pasture right now. I do have loafing areas where the horses can spend the day. How many hours/day horses need to graze to get what they need? What about the cows? They stay on it 24/7, right?

I used an old piece of chainlink fence as a drag to spread manure. It works pretty good as long as the grass is low enough. We have a drag harrow too.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the pasture is grazed down to the crowns of the plants. There is nothing to mow right now. I have a lot to learn.

I'll get a soil sample done right away. Is it okay to spread lime now even thought we're still getting temps in the 20's and 30's? Does it sit dormant until the weather warms and the rains come?

I want to achieve that "pasture beyond my imagination" you speak of! I can't wait to get started! Come on spring!!

[agmantoo]

Do you mind if we drop down into the other thread and continue our discussion on rotational grazing? I want to move more into the grass growing topic and I can elaborate there and share info with more people.

[BlackWillowFarm]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

Do you mind if we drop down into the other thread and continue our discussion on rotational grazing? I want to move more into the grass growing topic and I can elaborate there and share info with more people.

Sure! See you there....

[agmantoo]

Carla
Did you see I had a question for you in the other thread?