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The Essentials of Pasture Management
- Livestock are merely harvesters of the primary crop, forage. A
healthy forage crop ensures healthy, thriving livestock.
- Livestock should only graze each plant once during each grazing
cycle. Subdivide pastures as needed and rotate livestock to fresh
pastures often in order to achieve this.
- NEVER graze below minimum stubble height:
- 3 inches for bunch grasses (orchardgrass, ryegrass,
tall fescue)
- 2 inches for sod grasses (bluegrass and bentgrass)
- NEVER put livestock or equipment on wet or saturated soils.
- Provide fertilizer to meet, but not exceed, crop needs.
- Manure is free fertilizer! Use it first, and don't put it
where, when, or in amounts that you wouldn't put commercial fertilizer.
- Bare soil is generally a symptom of a livestock distribution or
overpopulation problem. Figure out the cause and fix it, because:
- Bare soil does not stay bare. Something will grow there.
Something often obnoxious, but possibly noxious or poisonous.
- Weeds are usually the result of ignoring the above recommendations.
Practice above recommendations, mow, hoe, pull, wick, wipe, or spray as
needed, and keep using the recommendations.
- Reseeding is always the last resort. It is expensive and ties up
acreage for several months. Give the current stand a year (or two) of
intensive management (see above) first and see it it improves adequately.
- A seed mix should contain species:
- suited for the site
- suited for the use (forage production, or soil/site
protection?)
- suited to each other (similar growing season and
palatability)
For more detailed assistance tailored to your own farm, please contact the
appropriate District Resource Planner for
your area.
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