How long to let a very over grazed pasture sit?

[paulsharvey]

I guess I will know more when I test and get results back, but. I was initially thinking one of 3 Bahia type, Argentine, Pensacola, or Tifton-9 (I think it's called, dont quote me on that); but now I'm considering coastal Bermuda. I had I my mind, always thought of Bahia=pasture, Bermuda=nicer, higher maintenance, lawn grass; but doing more reading, that doesn't appear to be true.

Seems like Bahia is more drought tolerant, and more traffic tolerant.

Bermuda is more shade tolerant, but also slightly better nutrition. I have also been told by several people Bermuda starts easier, faster, and spreads better. Not sure if that's true, but I've had several people tell me that.

 

[jaxs]

We haven't closed or taken possession, so this is the only photo I have currently, and it's pretty representative.

Plan, when ready, gonna take 'easy mode' and pick up 2 weened steers; but that isn't a rush.View attachment 881869

I know that 1/2/3 acres isn't gonna be enough to fully grass feed, and that's not the goal. Goal is grass, supplemented with hay and grain, to a light market weight, for personal use. Not trying to raise for profit, but also not trying to end up with $12/pound beef

With 1 acre you can't expect grazing to supplement the calf's feed. I recommend free choice hay an free choice high protein feed. Even if you had 10 acres those trees take herbicide use off the table making forage management next to impossible. Rotating 1 calf on 3 acre might supply enough grazing to benefit but I wouldn't expect to replace more than 20% of hand feed. Considering the small return on time and money for intense management for grazing, I'd concentrate my efforts on best practices keeping it looking nice. Regardless what you do, give the animal 24/7 access to all the quality hay it wants. I don't want to sound like doom and gloom but when driving past small acreages, less than 10% of cattle look healthy and seeing a calf in condition I would consider slaughtering is so rare I'd be hard pressed to show you one today.

 

[paulsharvey]

Here are some additional pictures. I'm going to have to figure out what trees I'm keeping, and what I'm getting rid of. I kinda did a 1st cull of trees, removing the dead. Next is going to be scrub oaks, and smaller pines. Harder part, I don't want to remove the live oaks/water oaks; and the larger pines, some od those need to go too.

 

[WinterDeere]

6" is too deep for a test, IMO. You want to sample the soil upon which your grass is feeding, which is really more like 3" deep.

I think I described my process earlier in this thread, but I take a bulb planter and a large (1 quart?) clean yogurt container around the yard with me. I jam the bulb planter into the ground with a few twists of the wrist, probably about 2" - 3" deep, pull it out, and shake a few pea-sized crumbs of soil into the yogurt container, before dropping that soil plug back into the hole from which it came. I repeat this maybe 20 times around the yard, trying to get a good average of sunny vs. shady and wet vs. dry areas.

I usually do this in February, when things are quite wet and soggy here, so I obviously never got the memo on sampling dry soil. I just let the yogurt container sit open in my heated garage a few days, that dries it out plenty fine. I give the container a good shaking to break up and mix up the various samples, before pouring whatever fits into a sample envelope provided by the testing company.

 

[paulsharvey]

So, I split the difference, and did 4.5". When you mix the two layers, it doesn't look nearly as bad as when your only looking at the surface, or only looking at the bottom 4-6". Going to leave it on the porch to dry a bit. Ag Ext guy said "mail it on a Monday, so it doesn't sit over the weekend in post office"

 

[paulsharvey]

So, in some areas, the grey and brown goes down the full 4.5" before getting to the orange-yellow "archer fill" material. Other areas it's 1.5". On one corner, at about 6" you start getting isolated balls of sand clay. My thinking, I'm going to treat this 1 acre as a single unit, and mix it all together; because I'm not going to do a different treatment on the NE 0.1 acre, and the SW 0.4 acre, and a 3rd treatment for the remainder.

Is that sound logic?

 

[WinterDeere]

Is that sound logic?

yes, that is exactly what I do for 4 acres of variable terrain and conditions.

I did actually split the area up into two samples the first year or two, just to see how different two distinct areas were. But as you noted, varying treatment between two areas is more trouble than it's worth, and it will all average out after awhile if you're controlling soil nutrients and pH with your own treatments.

 

[paulsharvey]

Soil sample was just sent out. I did kinda feel like maybe I cheaped out doing the single mixed sample, for $10, and $10.49 on shipping the sample in.

Did take wife on SxS and look at future plans for expanding; and what trees need to go, what probably should but I want to keep anyways....

I actually expected her to push back some on clearing another 3 acres or so; but she didn't at all. It's going to be selective, not full clear, and it's not urgent

 

[paulsharvey]

Everyone likes a nice pasture, it's just the 3 years or so of less than ideal mess it takes to go from woods to pasture that nobody really likes.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I haven't read through this thread as I just saw it so forgive me if I repeat what someone else has already said, I can't re-iterate this enough you want to plant bahai if you want ease of maintenance and an overall pasture grass that can sustain dry weather and grazing .
UF Riatta or UGA Tif-Quik are both good hybrids and will do well for you, but I will tell you this animals prefer Argentine Bahia over any other type of Bahia grass, if you have a patch of it in a field of the other types they will walk thru it to get to the Argentine, but both of the hybrids will produce more tonnage per acre, get with me when you get ready and I can give you some helpful tips on getting this grass started and probably where you can get some seed without having to give up your first born.

 

[paulsharvey]

I got an email from University of FLa that they received my sample Friday, morning so hopefully Monday or Tuesday, I'll have some results.

In the mean time, I've been clearing some of the small trash trees, 3-5" dead standing water oaks, all of the scrub oaks that I could easily get too, and some large dead standing long leaf pines. I initially made one large pile, but didn't want to light it up, so I started picking though it and burning a smaller, more contained pile.

What's the general thought on brush pile burns; do yall bury your ash, spread it around, leave a small isolated pile?

 

[paulsharvey]

OSHA rated safety crocs left in 2wd this evening

 

[Yander]

Current plan is two steers to start, going upto possibly 4 in next 3 years; but I might hold off for a bit. The current owner has goats and a donkey on it. I kinda think they under hayed, and the animals ate everything that was even a little green.


Also bounced around the idea of doing meat sheep, a hair breed, but honestly wife doesn't much like lamb meat, and I don't want pasture pets.

The guys who do regenerative agriculture would tell you get get hoofs on it now. Feed rolled out bales of hay to suppliment feed until the pasture regenerates. I'm no expert at all just want to do it eventually and have watched some of the experts.

The seed from the hay will also help regenerat the pasture. The manure will also help it. Two cows is too many at first I think, you will need to be feeding hay.

 

[Yander]

This is one of the experts I'm referring to. This guys is one of the notables in regenerative ag.

 

[WinterDeere]

What's the general thought on brush pile burns; do yall bury your ash, spread it around, leave a small isolated pile?

I usually have a large pile of topsoil, that I'm always adding to or taking from, and my ash gets dumped on this pile. I always try to turn and mix the pile as I'm pulling from it.

I don't actually know if this is a good practice, if you really want ash in your topsoil, but it's an easy way to get rid of the stuff and it seems to help with drainage and moisture retention in our high-clay soil.

 

[paulsharvey]

This is one of the experts I'm referring to. This guys is one of the notables in regenerative ag.

I did watch a fair number of his videos. I'm onboard with much of his general ideas/concepts to a degree; but I'm not down for twice daily moves, or even daily moves. I could see once ever two weeks rotating; cycling 3 fields as being pretty workable. He also makes some good points on fencing solutions.

I do think some of the ultra roational guys, grass feed only guys, and regenative guys can be a bit preachy though. As in, there is a lot of middle between twice daily moves, mob grazing, and a single 40 acre piece and no movement/rest/rotation. Ita kinda like the "I will never spray" and I always spray everything groups; or exclusively grass feed/grass finished vs grain finished; and IMO, the middle is often best.

 

[Rockbadchild]

ash is actually a good fertilizer, yes spread it.. we have some power plants in my area where they take natural gas to ignite wood scraps to runs their broiler and make electricity so we can get free (only have to pay delivery) ashes and farmers used it to save on fertilizer.

 

[paulsharvey]

On site development, normally 10-40 acre, either commercial or apartment development, we always buried the ash, but I knew old times spread it. Just wasn't sure what people prefer now as "best practice"

 

[Rockbadchild]

One site development, normally 10-40 acre, either commercial or apartment development, we always buried the ash, but I knew old times spread it. Just wasn't sure what people prefer now as "best practice"

Lots of folks mix it and spread it with their manure, it need to be spread pretty thin. Obviously one need to make sure there is no nails or what ever else in it.

 

[WinterDeere]

ash is actually a good fertilizer, yes spread it.. we have some power plants in my area where they take natural gas to ignite wood scraps to runs their broiler and make electricity so we can get free (only have to pay delivery) ashes and farmers used it to save on fertilizer.


View attachment 1296711

Thanks for posting the numbers, that's very useful, but I really wouldn't call that a good profile. Extremely low on N and P, and with way too much Ca. The only thing you can say really good about it is that it might be a decent substitute for calcium (pH adjust) and it has reasonable Potassium (K).

It has a pH around 10 - 12, which if you're planting base-loving plants in high-acid soil might be great. But if you already have your soil near target pH, that high Ca% is going to drag you high. And definitely don't use it around most evergreens, it wouldn't be good at all for them.

I mix it in with my topsoil because it's an easy way to get rid of ash (we heat our home with wood), and because our soil is too high in clay, so anything that breaks that up and offers a bit is mechanically good (drainage, moisture). But I don't think it has a particularly good fertilizer profile, and definitely wouldn't be thinking of it first for that purpose.