How long to let a very over grazed pasture sit?

[Jrasband]

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.

At the least to do rotational grazing you need to be rotating your animals once every 5 days, and preferably once every 3 days. It is very easy to move a waterer as long as you have watering points spread out. Polywire and step in posts only take 10 minutes to move. The main reason you have to move often is so the animals don't graze the regrowth. There are other reasons but this is the biggest I think.

I move two sets of cows each once a dayish and the results are amazing. I usually move the waterer every other day. More cows per acre, more trampling of weeds, better distribution of fertilizer, more grass.

 

[WinterDeere]

Your right it is surprising but after googling it that's what it needs. Most grasses are in the neutral ranges but there are odd balls.

Oh, definitely. I wasn't disputing it at all. I was just surprised, having only dealt with cool weather turf grasses, myself.

Looking at your chart, it's calling for 174#/acre N, the numbers just look smaller cause they are basing it on per 1000 soft, vs #/acre

Yep. The differences that surprised me were more in terms of targets, than recommendations, and mostly the pH.

My numbers are also small because even coming out of late winter, most of my nutrient levels were pretty much right on target. That's from 10-15 years of nailing the recommendations every year, my soil is now to a point where it very rarely drifts outside the "good" range. You'll also find your yearly requirements dropping off after the first year or two, to where you're still doing the same number of applications per year, but using lower-number products.

 

[WinterDeere]

My numbers are also small because even coming out of late winter, most of my nutrient levels were pretty much right on target... You'll also find your yearly requirements dropping off after the first year or two, to where you're still doing the same number of applications per year, but using lower-number products.

Just did some quick math on this:

Recommendation	My report (lb/ac)	Your Report (lb/ac)
Lime	0	365(D)
N	176	NA
P	22	60
K	110	80
Mg	0	20

Obviously, you want to do that Dolomitic lime first, as all the other nutrients are a waste of time and money, if pH isn't in range. Also, lime is far cheaper than any of the others.

I'm not sure why yours doesn't recommend N. Yeah, it's not something you can easily test, but there are known seasonal requirements per crop and climate.

I'm also surprised that, despite your K being so low, they're only recommending 80. It's not clear what units "15" is, but they do say "LOW". Mine is in-range, albeit toward the low side of the range, and they're still recommending 110 lb/ac. Again, crop and climate differences...

 

[paulsharvey]

Back to burning the brush pile again, and of coarse watching FB Marketplace for cheap discs and fertilizer spreaders. So far, most stuff within a reason drive is 50% new price, for a 99% used up impliment

 

[paulsharvey]

You can't really tell that I've removed any trees; but I've taken down probably 4-5 scrub oaks, around 8"; a dozen water or live oaks around 3-5"; and a handful of long leaf and some other type of pine, mostly 3-6", and 2 large dead long leaf pines,


Looks like those "other pines" are Loblolly

 

[WinterDeere]

Here we harvest trees to heat our homes. But what on earth do you do with them in FL? At least these ones were small, I'm often harvesting 24" - 60" diameter stuff.

 

[paulsharvey]

Here we harvest trees to heat our homes. But what on earth do you do with them in FL? At least these ones were small, I'm often harvesting 24" - 60" diameter stuff.

We have a pulp mill paper plant about 25 minutes away for slash pines primarily, and several saw mills the other direction about 40 minutes, for the long leaf pines. Oaks and other trash, you chip/burn/bury/pile to rot. But this kinda stuff, you cut into 8 ft lengths and burn just to get rid of it.

 

[paulsharvey]

On the property, kinda were eventual pasture #3 is gonna go, we do have some 40+ inch live oaks, but I don't plan to take them down. I'm not a tree higger by any means, but live oaks are just a nice looking tree to have, and deer like the live oak/water oak acorns. Scrub oaks... they are just a trash tree. Don't have any hickory, unfortunately.

 

[paulsharvey]

I was doing some figuring, and rereading, and shopping, and something I thought of. They call for no additional P, and I had a bit if a doubt on, do I not need any P or are they just trying to not recommend it, because the move here in FLa is to band P application on residential properties during certain months. Heck, I think some more Environmental mind counties have banned the sale to homeowners of it.

 

[WinterDeere]

Good question. I see yours came in at 35, and they call that "medium", but up here they recommend 50 - 70 ppm. More interesting, even though mine is above recommended range at 77 ppm, they're still recommending I apply 0.5 lb./1000 ft2. So the implication is that there must be some seasonal loss.

It'd be interesting to know what range they recommended for pasture grass in your climate, prior to P-sensitivity training.