New pasture seeding, variety suggestions?

Planting new grass pasture in about 80 acres in mid western Ohio. I was wondering what suggestions the forage guru's out there on Steer Planet would have? My program will be to graze as many months of the year as possible. I am planning on instituting a summer grazing paddock with native prairie grasses. What are your experiences? Suggestions?

I'm personally not a fan of the native grasses, but possibly I did not manage them correctly. I am in the process of killing all of my native pastures and seeding to other grasses & legumes. I think that we need to try to use some legumes to cut our N costs. Below is a link to a newer legume that is suppose to take to grazing pressure and not have an extremely high risk of cattle bloating on it.

http://www.ampacseed.com/kopu2.htm

Not a grass guru, but it is nice in our situation to winter dry cows on stockpiled native grass with minimal protein supplement and calve them out on it. By stockpile I mean that we do not graze it after Aug 1 until frost (in our part of Texas Nov 15th or so). Our mixture between native grasses and improved Bermuda is nearly 50/50. When I took over in 1991 (with dad's passing) or ratio was more like 90 to 10 with the 90 being improved. I was just too broke (college kid) to put out enough fertilizer to substain the improved pastures that were not in creek bottom land. My spring calvers cost me about $140 dollars a year because of native pastures. Can't play the same game with fall calvers and don't try to.... (angel) None of this may work in your situation, but to some degree you have to do what comes easy with grasses to be profitable...

I just now realized that I did not even attempt to answer question about what varieties. Can't help an Ohio man, which is ironic because many of the original settlers in our area were from Ohio. Not to insult your intelligence, but what grows in the medians of the the highways in your area? What grows in unmanaged (as far as grass) wildlife preseves? Sounds stupid, but that is really a good place to start...

I have heard good things about meadow fescue grass. It can yield almost as much as tall fescue but is much more palatable during the growing season than tall fescue. It is supposed to be a better choice for western Wisconsin where I am from. We are seeding down for a rotational grazing setup this year as well with seeding down about 130 acres. It is also supposed to take summer heat and dryness a little better than other cool season grasses. I by no means are a forage guru but that is what I am looking at in a fairly similar situation. I am looking to seed down here as soon as possible.

If you are looking at native warm season grasses for summer slump grazing - look into Gamma Grass.  It is an excellent grass that is a cousin of corn, very high in sugar, nicknamed ice cream grass because cattle like it so much.  Other native mixes, blue stem, indian grass etc. are good to.

As with all NATIVE grasses, you CANNOT graze it the way we typically graze the cool-season grasses.  You have to leave about 6" of residual stem when the cows leave the paddock, as this is where most of the natives store their energy reserves vs cool seasons in the root systems.  This means you let it get much taller before going in, and ideally you would use temporary polywire reels to section off smaller pieces at a time to keep the grazing density up (think mimic the way a buffalo herd would move though an area eating and flatting the rest in a very concentrated way).  Then rest for a good long period so it can be fully recovered prior to re-grazing.

Improved fescues mixed with clovers/legumes are the way to go for fall/winter grazing.

Standard white dutch with orchard or preferably perrenial rye grass (if your soil fertility is good enough to maintain the stand) makes the best cool season mix.  Obviously having a bunch of other stuff in there and a diverse forage sward is a good thing.

Hope that helps.

Switchgrass is a warmseason grass and does decent in the hot summer months and fescue or orchard is a cool season. Little bit of all three maybe? We have red clover and alfalfa here in western ohio but we dont graze on that just make haylage off it. Graze on what im assuming is native in switchgrass? I dont know this is just what we do and I'd be interested in some more comments on this also!

the person who would know as much or more about this topic-- no longer visits this site... 

Mix of Max-Q tall fescue and Persist orchardgrass, with white/ladino clover and an annual lespedeza.
Love that Kopu II  white clover - have had it in the mix here for 5+ years; aggressive grower, large leaf; best white clover I've ever planted, but Alice is probably the next best.  Will & Seminole both perform well here, as well.

Trying some Red River crabgrass as an additional warm-season component this year.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. There are a lot of different options for sure. I think I will make sure that I plant plenty of warm season grass. It seems that the warm season grass paddocks are very important in order to not be feeding hay during the summer and allowing the cool season to grow back for late fall. I still haven't quite decided on the cool season yet but I would really like to have a mixture of orchard grass and fescue. One thing I heard from someone not on this site is that the new endophyte free fescues don't last very long. Has anyone had experience with this? How has it persisted?

JTM,
I addressed this in your other post.
While 'chasing' NRCS program dollars, I planted their recommended mix of orchardgrass/timothy/red clover - but also included some endophyte-free fescue in the mix (paid for with my own $$).  Looked great the first  year or so.  But, if you ever encounter a significant drought situation - and the subsequent overgrazing that often accompanies that - the low/no endophyte varieties 'give up the ghost' pretty doggone quickly.  They just can't stand up to adversity or abuse.

It's all well and good for university extension to provide yield data on those endophyte free selections, but those are from small test plots, managed carefully and harvested at peak yield.  To me, the proof is in the pudding when they do trials that look at persistence under grazing pressure - that's more of a 'real world' revelation of how well they hold up.

If I were planting a hay field that would only be cut a couple of times a year, and not grazed, I might consider low/no endophyte fescue, but from my own experience, I would not use them in a grazing situation - I'd either go with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescues(several now on the market, Max-Q being the one with the longest history)mixed with an orchardgrass that has some track record of persistence (like 'Persist'), or I'd go with the cheap 'dirty' KY-31, maintain a good stand of legumes to dilute/diminish the effects of the fescue endophyte, and select cattle that will perform on those forages.

cornish said:

the person who would know as much or more about this topic-- no longer visits this site... 

Click to expand...

Darn It! Well tell "him" to get off the lamb forum or the chicken forum and come on back. ALTHOUGH.......I have a feeling "he" might be among us........ <alien>

Lucky_P said:

JTM,
I addressed this in your other post.
While 'chasing' NRCS program dollars, I planted their recommended mix of orchardgrass/timothy/red clover - but also included some endophyte-free fescue in the mix (paid for with my own $$).  Looked great the first  year or so.  But, if you ever encounter a significant drought situation - and the subsequent overgrazing that often accompanies that - the low/no endophyte varieties 'give up the ghost' pretty doggone quickly.  They just can't stand up to adversity or abuse.

It's all well and good for university extension to provide yield data on those endophyte free selections, but those are from small test plots, managed carefully and harvested at peak yield.  To me, the proof is in the pudding when they do trials that look at persistence under grazing pressure - that's more of a 'real world' revelation of how well they hold up.

If I were planting a hay field that would only be cut a couple of times a year, and not grazed, I might consider low/no endophyte fescue, but from my own experience, I would not use them in a grazing situation - I'd either go with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescues(several now on the market, Max-Q being the one with the longest history)mixed with an orchardgrass that has some track record of persistence (like 'Persist'), or I'd go with the cheap 'dirty' KY-31, maintain a good stand of legumes to dilute/diminish the effects of the fescue endophyte, and select cattle that will perform on those forages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info lucky. Based on the information you all have provided I am leaning towards a product by Forage First called Mare and Foal pasture mix. It contains 50% Haymate Orchard Grass, 25% Top Tim Timothy grass, 15% Festulolium, and 10% Kentucky Bluegrass. I would then come back next year and frost seed in some red clover. Anybody have any thoughts on this or issues? Planning on planting Indian grass/ Big bluestem and birdsfoot trefoil into a summer grazing paddock also.

Fred Owen, who was a long-time grass-based dairy grazier, was a huge booster of bluegrass/white clover as the best 'default' forage mix for northern OH. 
http://userpages.bright.net/~fwo/sub14.html

Although I'm in KY, I'm located in southern west-central, just north of the TN line, and KY bluegrass is NOT well adapted to my region, and the fescues are a much better choice.
I can't comment on the specific varieties in that Mare & Foal mix - you might check Extension publications for your state to see how those particular selections stack up.  They may be good... or not so much so.
For example, I know from looking at some of the seeded bermudagrass variety trials, some of the 'blends' offered by local seedsellers here contain one strain that establishes well, and grows agressively, potentially overpowering the other two varieties in the mix - but it is prone to winter-kill, leaving you with little or nothing the next spring.

A diverse, mixed-species forage sward is a good thing.  Not good to 'put all your eggs in one basket'.
I've included orchardgrass in my plantings - and the cows do eat it in our fairly intensive rotational grazing program with cows moving to a new 5-acre paddock every 1-2 days -  but it's just about the very last thing they'll eat.
Order of preference I see from watching my cows eat is: Johnsongrass, crabgrass, fescue, various forbs/weeds, white clover, orchardgrass.

JTM said:

Lucky_P said:

JTM,
I addressed this in your other post.
While 'chasing' NRCS program dollars, I planted their recommended mix of orchardgrass/timothy/red clover - but also included some endophyte-free fescue in the mix (paid for with my own $$).  Looked great the first  year or so.  But, if you ever encounter a significant drought situation - and the subsequent overgrazing that often accompanies that - the low/no endophyte varieties 'give up the ghost' pretty doggone quickly.  They just can't stand up to adversity or abuse.

It's all well and good for university extension to provide yield data on those endophyte free selections, but those are from small test plots, managed carefully and harvested at peak yield.  To me, the proof is in the pudding when they do trials that look at persistence under grazing pressure - that's more of a 'real world' revelation of how well they hold up.

If I were planting a hay field that would only be cut a couple of times a year, and not grazed, I might consider low/no endophyte fescue, but from my own experience, I would not use them in a grazing situation - I'd either go with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescues(several now on the market, Max-Q being the one with the longest history)mixed with an orchardgrass that has some track record of persistence (like 'Persist'), or I'd go with the cheap 'dirty' KY-31, maintain a good stand of legumes to dilute/diminish the effects of the fescue endophyte, and select cattle that will perform on those forages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info lucky. Based on the information you all have provided I am leaning towards a product by Forage First called Mare and Foal pasture mix. It contains 50% Haymate Orchard Grass, 25% Top Tim Timothy grass, 15% Festulolium, and 10% Kentucky Bluegrass. I would then come back next year and frost seed in some red clover. Anybody have any thoughts on this or issues? Planning on planting Indian grass/ Big bluestem and birdsfoot trefoil into a summer grazing paddock also.

Click to expand...

Just asking to possibly save you money and get you better results, wanting to ask why not seed the legumes with your grass seed to save you a trip and to fix N for the grass plants rather than have to make another trip next season and not have as good of method of planting the legumes as you do currently. Here we usually seed legumes along with the grass seed & I personally would seed something like alphalfa and Orchard grass/Brome/Timothy together. Typical seeding rate may be 12 to 18 lbs of legumes with 2 to 3 lbs of grass seed knowing that 5 years from now the grasses are going to be over 50% of the stand. Just asking your thoughts. Interesting topic.

CAB said:

JTM said:

Lucky_P said:

JTM,
I addressed this in your other post.
While 'chasing' NRCS program dollars, I planted their recommended mix of orchardgrass/timothy/red clover - but also included some endophyte-free fescue in the mix (paid for with my own $$).  Looked great the first  year or so.  But, if you ever encounter a significant drought situation - and the subsequent overgrazing that often accompanies that - the low/no endophyte varieties 'give up the ghost' pretty doggone quickly.  They just can't stand up to adversity or abuse.

It's all well and good for university extension to provide yield data on those endophyte free selections, but those are from small test plots, managed carefully and harvested at peak yield.  To me, the proof is in the pudding when they do trials that look at persistence under grazing pressure - that's more of a 'real world' revelation of how well they hold up.

If I were planting a hay field that would only be cut a couple of times a year, and not grazed, I might consider low/no endophyte fescue, but from my own experience, I would not use them in a grazing situation - I'd either go with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescues(several now on the market, Max-Q being the one with the longest history)mixed with an orchardgrass that has some track record of persistence (like 'Persist'), or I'd go with the cheap 'dirty' KY-31, maintain a good stand of legumes to dilute/diminish the effects of the fescue endophyte, and select cattle that will perform on those forages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info lucky. Based on the information you all have provided I am leaning towards a product by Forage First called Mare and Foal pasture mix. It contains 50% Haymate Orchard Grass, 25% Top Tim Timothy grass, 15% Festulolium, and 10% Kentucky Bluegrass. I would then come back next year and frost seed in some red clover. Anybody have any thoughts on this or issues? Planning on planting Indian grass/ Big bluestem and birdsfoot trefoil into a summer grazing paddock also.

Click to expand...

Just asking to possibly save you money and get you better results, wanting to ask why not seed the legumes with your grass seed to save you a trip and to fix N for the grass plants rather than have to make another trip next season and not have as good of method of planting the legumes as you do currently. Here we usually seed legumes along with the grass seed & I personally would seed something like alphalfa and Orchard grass/Brome/Timothy together. Typical seeding rate may be 12 to 18 lbs of legumes with 2 to 3 lbs of grass seed knowing that 5 years from now the grasses are going to be over 50% of the stand. Just asking your thoughts. Interesting topic.

Click to expand...

I've heard of people doing this, but we have always seeded everything at the same time.

This year, I'm seeding down about 38 acres.  And actually my seed guy suggested something that I think is great wrt seeding - we are going to mix the seed with the fertilizer and broadcast on.  Light cultivate, cult-pack, broadcast and then pack again.  The first pack is very important and often skipped with poor results - you'll end up with seeds too deep, the spots where the buggy drove will look great others poor.  Anyway, going to give it a try given my lack of equipment.  Also, need the fertilizer plant to mix and then immediately get on the field - no sitting around.

We typically use a grain drill and use an oat nurse crop that we green cut for baleage.  But using a drill can often get your little seed too deep.  Anyway, I'll let you know how this method works by the end of the summer.  I'm still broadcasting oats, so they likely won't do as well, but I really care most about the pasture mix.

DRB said:

CAB said:

JTM said:

Lucky_P said:

JTM,
I addressed this in your other post.
While 'chasing' NRCS program dollars, I planted their recommended mix of orchardgrass/timothy/red clover - but also included some endophyte-free fescue in the mix (paid for with my own $$).  Looked great the first  year or so.  But, if you ever encounter a significant drought situation - and the subsequent overgrazing that often accompanies that - the low/no endophyte varieties 'give up the ghost' pretty doggone quickly.  They just can't stand up to adversity or abuse.

It's all well and good for university extension to provide yield data on those endophyte free selections, but those are from small test plots, managed carefully and harvested at peak yield.  To me, the proof is in the pudding when they do trials that look at persistence under grazing pressure - that's more of a 'real world' revelation of how well they hold up.

If I were planting a hay field that would only be cut a couple of times a year, and not grazed, I might consider low/no endophyte fescue, but from my own experience, I would not use them in a grazing situation - I'd either go with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescues(several now on the market, Max-Q being the one with the longest history)mixed with an orchardgrass that has some track record of persistence (like 'Persist'), or I'd go with the cheap 'dirty' KY-31, maintain a good stand of legumes to dilute/diminish the effects of the fescue endophyte, and select cattle that will perform on those forages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info lucky. Based on the information you all have provided I am leaning towards a product by Forage First called Mare and Foal pasture mix. It contains 50% Haymate Orchard Grass, 25% Top Tim Timothy grass, 15% Festulolium, and 10% Kentucky Bluegrass. I would then come back next year and frost seed in some red clover. Anybody have any thoughts on this or issues? Planning on planting Indian grass/ Big bluestem and birdsfoot trefoil into a summer grazing paddock also.

Click to expand...

Just asking to possibly save you money and get you better results, wanting to ask why not seed the legumes with your grass seed to save you a trip and to fix N for the grass plants rather than have to make another trip next season and not have as good of method of planting the legumes as you do currently. Here we usually seed legumes along with the grass seed & I personally would seed something like alfalfa and Orchard grass/Brome/Timothy together. Typical seeding rate may be 12 to 18 lbs of legumes with 2 to 3 lbs of grass seed knowing that 5 years from now the grasses are going to be over 50% of the stand. Just asking your thoughts. Interesting topic.

Click to expand...

I've heard of people doing this, but we have always seeded everything at the same time.

This year, I'm seeding down about 38 acres.  And actually my seed guy suggested something that I think is great wrt seeding - we are going to mix the seed with the fertilizer and broadcast on.  Light cultivate, cult-pack, broadcast and then pack again.  The first pack is very important and often skipped with poor results - you'll end up with seeds too deep, the spots where the buggy drove will look great others poor.  Anyway, going to give it a try given my lack of equipment.  Also, need the fertilizer plant to mix and then immediately get on the field - no sitting around.

We typically use a grain drill and use an oat nurse crop that we green cut for baleage.  But using a drill can often get your little seed too deep.  Anyway, I'll let you know how this method works by the end of the summer.  I'm still broadcasting oats, so they likely won't do as well, but I really care most about the pasture mix.

Click to expand...

If you do decide to mix your seed with your fert. and broadcast it, I would recommend that you cut your planned fert rate in half and then split your tracks to get your original wanted rate. The reason being that your grass seed is not near the same density as your fert. so you will end up with streaks if you don't address this in some type of manor IMO. Also pick a day or time when the wind is calm to minimize this streaking effect.
  My best seedings have been no till into soybean stubble here.  I drill grass seed mixed in with cover crop,(usually  oats) baled as soon as we think it will cure, legumes ran through the small seed attachment trying to put it 1/4 inch deep, & here is the thing that I wish everyone would try @ least one time., we roll it with a cultipacker at a slower speed so that the packer does a better job. When I seed in this way, I can always row the legume B4 the oats are up. I can get great stands of alfalfa seeded @ 12lbs per acre using the packer as described above.

My experience with planting small-seeded legumes(red/white clover) with the NRCS no-till drill was that it put the seed too deep and I got almost NO clover in my stand.  Worked OK for vetch and crimson clover, but after that one disaster, I don't trust the no-till drills available for rent here to put out that valuable clover seed; I just drill in the fescue/OG in the fall and overseed the clover in Feb.

Lucky_P said:

My experience with planting small-seeded legumes(red/white clover) with the NRCS no-till drill was that it put the seed too deep and I got almost NO clover in my stand.  Worked OK for vetch and crimson clover, but after that one disaster, I don't trust the no-till drills available for rent here to put out that valuable clover seed; I just drill in the fescue/OG in the fall and overseed the clover in Feb.

Click to expand...

I agree that if the drill does not have a small seed attachment, that if you have to put to small seed'(legumes), in with the cover crop' that it will get too deep. With the first 2 leaves of the clover being the seed itself, it gets to be too much to push itself up through the dirt in comparison to a grass plant that just has to shoot up a spike.

do you know how to use a no till drill? one with two seed boxes?  You do know that you can adjust the depths of them right?

The way a notill drill works-- you put your big seeds in the big boxes, and drill them however deep you want them-- most often, not very deep.  You then put your small seeds in the small boxes on the rear-- and they just sprinkle the seed on top of the ground.  some drills have a harrow- some do not.  in any account- most all of these seed remains on top of the ground, but since you just turned up the ground with the no-till coulters-- it gets good seed: soil contact. 

personally, even when i use a notill drill-- I don't put the seed in the ground, but enough to cover it up.  Why?== most often it's either in the spring or fall- where the soil has plenty of moisture and you don't need to go very deep. 

I do quite a bit of broadcasting my seed-- inter seed my legumes each year with my fertilizer application... and if i have a new stand to establish-- I just broadcast everything-- oats, grasses and legumes.  come behind with a harrow-- try to do it right before a rain...

and, I by no means farm full time...

Most of the no-till NRCS drills around here are JD, and if your seeding in the spring, you might as well put the clover seed on top of the ground  (down pressure is adjustable and well need to be adjusted with different soil conditions.  Just pull the drop tubes off and let the seed go on the ground, it will be fine as long as it rains.  We've put clover seed on with dry spreaders mixed with fertilizer and we've done it with liquid fertilizer (usually when spreading with dry we cut the rate by half and double spread it, and if the ground is worked we run a mulcher over it (before and after seeding - this also helps break up any clods of dirt).  If you are working the ground  and running the mulcher over it you might as well broadcast everything together).  Really the grass seed just needs to be just under the surface (too deep is worse than it being right on top).

As far as a mixture our pastures in NE MISSOURI are fescue with clover, but our hay is variable.  We have some straight alfalfa, some timothy-clover, orchard grass clover (hay fields).  The timothy always out yields the others but you only get one cutting and regrowth is minimal (but there is some).  Is there anyone that uses Reed Canary Grass for pasture and hay, we have some water ways with it.  I was always told that the seed is expensive and poor germination but it seems like it gets beat down to nothing and still comes back, very high yielding (over my head in places), takes really wet periods and dry periods very well, it is a warm season grass, there must be some drawback to it otherwise I would think it would be more popular?