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| Pasture management key to summer production |
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How you manage your pasture grasses and legumes in April, May and early June will determine how much forage you have available for the livestock in July, August and into the fall. It is difficult, but important, to keep the grasses in a vegetative stage. When the plant moves from producing leaves to producing seed, growth stops.
Soils that are too wet make management even more difficult. As animals trample and compact the soils, air space in the soil is reduced and plants are stressed. Stressed plants may not produce for weeks or even months. Everyone with horses or livestock needs an area where the animals can be penned off the pasture when it is too wet. Many people call these areas sacrifice lots. These lots are not expected to produce plants for grazing. Unfortunately some pastures by August are “sacrifice lots.”
The designated sacrifice lots might be constructed into heavy use pads. Environmental Quality Improvement Program, EQIP, funds are available through, USDA Farm Services and Natural Resource Conservation Services, to help pay for the construction of the pads. Since the area will not produce enough to feed the animals, you will need to feed hay while in the sacrifice lot. Start moving animals through your lots when the soils are not saturated and animals are not cutting into the swad. Plants should be about four inches tall.
Give the animals just enough time in each lot to graze the tops off the forage before you move them on to the next lot. This will help stagger forage growth, keep more plants producing leaves in the vegetative state, and reduce seedheads. It is not easy to stay ahead of the growth when temperatures warm and growth explodes. By the time you have made one rotation, grass may be ready to allow the animals to stay in a lot longer. The excess production can be baled if weather permits.
If not, it is better to clip the pasture and keep it growing. If uneven grazing patterns are occurring, with fescue as an example not being selected, your lots are too large or you don’t have enough animals in the lot.
The only solution to keep the tall grass from going to seed is to clip it. If this happens you need to make your lots smaller. |
| 4/8/2009 |
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