Improving Pasture

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OEF Simmentals

Active member
Joined
Feb 22, 2018
Messages
29
Good afternoon,

One of my goals for 2019 is to improve the yield in my current pastures and build a few more pastures so my cattle can graze for a few extra months each year.

Current pastures do well but have a fair amount of weeds that really start taking over after the cows graze down the good stuff. My current strategy is to allow the cows to graze the pasture down tight in August and then stray Grazon HL to kill all of the broad leaf weeds. Then, frost seed back red and white clover in the spring.

The new pastures are about 80% weeds / 20% grass. I'm trying to decide if i should spray/frost seed that to get started or pay the extra money to plow and fully reseed with a pasture mix.

I'm located in northern PA. Any thoughts on either strategy are appreciated. I'd like to hear other strategies that have worked as well.

Thank you.
 

peachy

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
189
Location
Pittsfield,Illinois
Grazon has residual and clover will probably not germinate in the spring if you use it.Spray now and wait until middle of August and notill grass into it. Get your grass established and weed pressure under control then worry about the legumes the next year. It’s going to take time!
 

knabe

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 7, 2007
Messages
13,639
Location
Hollister, CA
i irrigated a couple of pastures, waited a bit, ripped it.  irrigated it again, let the "weeds" germ, waited till about 1-6" high, then shallow disced it.  planted grass legume mix and drug a piece of chain fence over it and irrigated it again.  can't believe how few weeds there are in it, even most of the fox tail is gone.  really the only weeds left are dove weed (native plant), odd mustard here and there, some plantain and foxtail around the edges.
 

beebe

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
520
Increasing stock density, not stocking rate can do a lot for pasture.  Some weeds become forage and you don't lose your beneficial forbes.
 
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