Establishment/Renovation
Establishment/Renovation
Strategies for Reclaiming Hay Feeding Areas
Livestock treading during the winter months can result in almost complete disturbance in and around hay feeding areas. Even well-designed hay feeding pads will have significant damage where animals enter and leave. These highly disturbed areas create perfect growing conditions for summer annual weeds like spiny pigweed and cockle bur.
Tips to Improve Hay Production this Spring
You have probably heard the expression “garbage in, garbage out." This adage is not only true for hay and silage, but also completely appropriate. Baling or ensiling poor quality forage will NOT improve its nutritional value. How we manage hayfields this spring can have a major impact on both yield and nutritive value.
Strategies for Repairing Pugged Pastures
Wet conditions can result in significant pugging damage in pastures. Pugging occurs when the hooves of grazing livestock penetrate the soil surface during wet conditions, causing damage to pasture plants as well as soil structure. Pasture plants can be torn and buried.
Maximizing Success with Frost Seedings of Clover
Literally thousands of acres of Kentucky pasture and hay fields are overseeded with clover, much of it frost‐seeded in late winter. Yet this is one of the few times where crops are seeded where we halfway expect not to get a stand, or we are not sure if the clover that comes is really from the seed spread.
Forage Tip of the Month: Common vs. Certified Seed
Once you have selected a forage species and variety, it is recommended to buy a quality seed that is high in germination rate and free of weed seed. Buying certified seed guarantees that the requirements for both of these parameters have been met and should be the first purchasing option.
Overseeding Pastures in Kentucky
Overseeding of pastures is an excellent management tool that improves pasture production, forage quality, and ensures a good ground cover the following year without major pasture renovations. Overseeding consists of planting seed in a field with existing grass cover in order to fill in bare patches and thicken the stand.
Renovating Pastures
Multiple reasons exist for the need to reseed pastures, such as old stands that are dying out causing bare spots, to reduce number of undesirable weeds and forages, to introduce a new forage species, to control forage-related disorders, among many other causes.
Inoculating Legume Seed
Although there are many benefits of using legumes in pastures, one of the most desirable is the ability of these plants to fix atmospheric nitrogen. This can increase yields and quality while significantly reducing fertilizer costs. Nitrogen fixation is the result of the symbiotic relationship between the plant and rhizobium bacteria.
Purchasing Quality Seed
It’s time for those planning on seeding pastures or hayfields this spring to begin preparing. Whether renovating pastures, converting cropland into pasture, establishing a new species into an existing stand, or reestablishing winter feeding areas and other high traffic areas, it is important to purchase high quality seed to get the best results.
Successful Seeding
Seed is the basic building block to a forage or crop stand. Whether establishing a new stand or improving an old stand, actions can be taken to ensure that newly planted seed produces a healthy stand. Seed is one of the cheaper inputs into a grazing system, and this cost should be offset by pasture production.
When to Reseed Pastures
Multiple reasons exist for needing to reseed pasture, such as old stands that are dying out or stands that need to be improved due to poor management, disease, to fill in bare spots, or to reduce weed problems. When deciding what forage species to seed, determine future goals and plans for the pasture in question.
Frost Seeding
The frost seeding method allows seeds to be inter-seeded into undisturbed soils by scattering seed on top of the ground. The freezing and thawing action of the soil works the seeds into the soil where they can germinate. In Kentucky, the ideal time to frost seed is between February 10 and March 1, with mid-February preferred.
Establishing Warm-Season Annuals
Adding warm-season annuals to a grazing system can provide high quality forage throughout the hot summer months. When temperatures exceed 75°F, cool-season grasses and legumes decrease production and decline in quality. Many producers are often forced to feed stored feeds to get through the summer months.
Partridge Pea or Chamaecrista Fasciculata
Partridge pea is a warm-season legume commonly used in wildlife seed mixes. Conservation Reserve Program lands are often seeded with these wildlife mixes. Partridge pea provides good nutrition and cover for birds and other wildlife.
Soil Testing
Taking soil samples during the fall of the year allows the farmer time to have the fertilizer applied well before grasses start to grow in the spring. Most pasture fields should be sampled every three to four years. If you use a field strictly for cutting hay from or for annual row crops, and nutrients get removed and not added back, you should soil test annually.
Growth of Grasses and Legumes
Good grazing management will result in improved pasture yields. Understanding how plants grow allows for better management decisions as to when to move livestock under different growing conditions. This article will focus on growth occurring after grazing or mowing.
Managing Spring Grass: Going from 0 to 60
Spring can often be one of the most challenging times of the year for graziers. Grass growth goes from nonexistent to excessive in a matter of weeks, and in many cases grazing livestock have a hard time keeping up with it. This can result in lower quality forage that is less palatable.
Frost Seeding Clover: Just Do It!
Everyone is familiar with Nike’s ad campaign that encourages people to “JUST DO IT.” I am officially adopting this slogan for my 2017 Frost Seeding Campaign. Legumes are an essential part of a strong and healthy nitrogen cycle in grasslands.
The Value of Coated Seed
Over the last 20 years there has been a growing trend for more and more alfalfa and clover seed to be coated. I am often asked “Is it worth buying coated seed?” I almost always answer yes to this question, especially in the case of alfalfa and clover seed.
Seeding Cool-Season Perennial Grasses
Cool-season perennials are the primary forage grazed by livestock in Kentucky. Species, such as tall fescue and orchardgrass, will last for many years in a pasture with proper management. Good establishment and management principles must be practiced to allow for establishment of forages within newly renovated fields.
Aerating Pastures: Is It Worth It?
Cattle producers in Kentucky rely on cool-season perennial grasses to provide the majority of forage for their cattle operations. Grasses, such as tall fescue, can be grazed for many years without any type of tillage tool being used on the field.
Renovating High-Traffic Areas
High traffic areas, such as feeding areas, sacrifice lots, alleyways, gateways and waterers, are often bare and muddy late winter and early spring. To slow and reduce soil erosion, compaction, forage damage, and weed problems, these areas need to be renovated promptly. Reducing these muddy areas is beneficial for animal health.
Interseeding Clover
Adding clovers to grass pastures and hay fields can offer many benefits to a forage system. Clovers interseeded with grasses improve animal performance, increase nutritional quality of pasture and hay, extend the grazing season, and reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer.
