Nice article on pasture

cowboydoc · Jun 25, 2004

slowrev · Jun 25, 2004

Nice article, thanks .

alan40 · Jul 25, 2004

Nice article Doc. I live in dairy country here in Vermont and know absolutely nothing about farming. I enjoy these articles because when we have a get together I have a little input. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif You should see the farmers look at me. Of course most of the time they just laugh and blow me off. That's why they laugh when they see me mowing my fields with a 5 ft. rotay cutter for 4 hours. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
By the way. How'd that buckskin cutting horse of yours ever work out? That is one beautiful animal.
Take care and thanks for all the good inputs.

green4710 · Aug 3, 2004

I just got a job where I need to take a field full of weeds, and turn it into a pasture. Anyone have any ideas how to do this? Im thinking mowing the weeds to the ground, then doing soil tests, followed by disking once or twice, followed by a soil pulverizer/packer, then using my overseeder to seed. That was a good article Doc, very interesting. Think I'm on the right track?

cowboydoc · Aug 3, 2004

The only thing I would do different is I would roundup the weeds after you mow them. I would let that sit over the winter. This will give you some good dead matter to mix into the soil to give your grass a head start.

Mark4510 · Aug 19, 2004

Wow. Sounds like you have a great opportunity based on your profile. I am envious.

The only thing I would add to what Richard said is specific to the Yellow Star Thistle. If you have that in the pasture you will need to be a bit more aggressive. Mowing actually helps this plant thrive.

You will need to spray it with a slightly stronger than average dose of Round up before the flower blooms. Once sprayed, the plant will generally continue to grow for a couple of weeks but should die out in 4-6. Any plants that have flowered prior or after spraying should be picked by hand and burned. If this is an open pasture you would be wise to expect it to take more than 1 year to get rid of especially if you turn your pastures over.

If the pasture is shaded, then you can probably get rid of it with one spraying. Keeping pasture grasses irrigated and/or long goes a long way to keeping it at bay.

Generally, toxicity takes a while to build up in a horse so it can be deceiving. Ugly invader......

Good luck with the horse operation.
Mark

Phred · Aug 22, 2004

I agree with cowboy doc. Kill the weeds first.

Several years ago I started doing the same task and its just now starting to pay off because: 1) I had very low ph in places. Truth is I should have been more agressive with the lime. But its getting better now.
2) I had a P problem. No where near enough. This was easy to fix with the right Fert. 3) I did not spray the weeds. I just brodcast seeded more grass over it and cut it regularly.

Its good enough now to grow pretty good cow hay. And in a couple of more years I may have it horse quality.

I have reserved a rental on a 10 ft notill drill for mid september. This is the way to put grass seed down IMHO. The plan is to over seed fescue into the current stand. The only reason I am doing this and not killing it off is that now I have a solid stand of fescue with only a few bald and or thin spots.

If you are mostly weeds then trust me you need to kill them first. Otherwise it will be years before you have a good stand of grass.

Talk to your local county extension office. They can help with a soil test and also maybe tell you where to rent a drill if your ready for that step. These folks can also give you some advice about spraying for weeds. This late in the year, I suspect that roundup is your best bet.

Fred