When first started looking into raising cattle and converting cropland into pasture a little over a year ago we knew that we wanted to do things as well as we could. We had LOTS of grasses and legumes to choose from and most of all, we wanted a lot of variety in our pastures. This view came mostly from the influence of Joel Salatin who has never planted a single seed on his pastures and just works with whatever God provides them.
We talked to a number of people and read tons of literature on different forages. We wanted grasses that would last many years, would do well in warm and cool weather (through the whole growing season), and that would give the animals a varied diet.
We decided early on that we didn’t want fescue because we had heard so many grass farmers complain about it’s negative effects. The endophyte that infects all common fescue grass is great for the grass because it helps it to survive drought conditions and be hardy over all. The endophyte is not good however for mares and cattle. For mares it can cause an abortion and/or no milk to be produced, but in cattle the effects are more subtle with decreased conception and overall poor performance of cattle. While trying to put together a list of a few grasses and a few legumes to mix into our pastures it was very difficult to find any grass that is expected to persist as well as fescue and everyone around here would comment to us, “Well, everyone I know just plants fescue and clover”. This wasn’t what we wanted to hear, we were starting from scratch so we wanted to plant the BEST mix that we could, not just what was common.
Finally, we found out about a new type of fescue that was developed to incorporate the advantages of fescue but omit it’s disadvantages to the animals. This newly developed fescue is called MaxQ Fescue and has been “infected” with an endophyte that is very similar to the type that infects varieties like K31 but this endophyte seems to have no effect on horses or cattle.
We finally settled on a mix of orchard grass and MaxQ fescue for our grasses and alfalfa and ladino clover for our legumes. While ordering our fescue we were informed that it does not establish itself well in the spring so we held off on that, the most expensive of all the seed. We drilled our mixed pasture on about 8 acres on April 18th 2008. We would have liked to get this seed out sooner but the rains this year just would not let up! We’ve been really happy with the growth of these forages and have welcomed many other grasses such as foxtail, johnson, crab grass, etc. that came up for FREE!
Because of the cost and hassel of drilling seed with a tractor, we just broadcast the MaxQ seed this past Saturday. We used a hand held seeder that throws the seed onto the ground and starting yesterday the cattle are grazing over this area to press the seed into the ground. Because this particular seed is so expensive and our pasture has done so well in most areas, we only planted fescue in the areas that looked like they could use it.
September 15th is supposed to be the optimal time for us to plant fescue in our area but because it will likely take our cows a month to rotate through this pasture, one paddock at a time, we planted a little early.
Have you had any experience developing a pasture from scratch? Any advice for us weekend grass farmers?
I seeded an area after a tornado cleanup, (lots of disturbed soil, and areas of subsoil from digging pits) by broadcasting a native seed mixture (big bluestem, little bluestem, switchgrass, etc) and then dragging an old gate behind the truck all over the area.
Supposedly, simply using ultra high stocking densities will also cause native prairie grasses to reestablish in pastures (something about native grasses spreading mainly by rhizome activity and having extremely deep roots)
The easiest way to convert cropland to pasture would be to simply leave the stubble after harvest, wait for volunteer grasses like crabgrass to start growing, and then start grazing using a high stocking density.
There is some information about reseeding cropland to perennial grasses at:
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2549/NREM-2581web.pdf
Rich,
I’d love to do UHSD Grazing but with only 4 cows, 2 calves, a steer and a small bull, it’s a little hard to do. We’re grazing them in small paddocks of about 25-40′ x 200′ and they are doing pretty well at eating what they want. Hopefully when the “good stuff” is more established we will have more animals and will be able to hit each paddock a little harder, forcing them to eat or trample the stuff they don’t like so much too.