Establishing A Pasture

[Gene Blister]

Hi all!

This will be Bessy II’s first spring and I want to finally get to work establishing a pasture-ish area on my homestead. It won’t be to support grazing animals right away, just look better, more controlled and groomed, than a weedy fire danger “vacant lot.” I’m hoping your experiences can help.

The ¾ acre site is south-facing in full sun, gently sloped down to the west and south. There’s no irrigation but I can get a hose and reciprocating sprinkler to it.

I’ve been hitting the indigenous weeds with glyphosate for the last 3 years and have managed to eliminate the oxeye daisy and most of the mullen. I gave the remaining grasses a good chop at 3 inches with the RCR1248LP brush hog last fall.

After the ground dries enough to work, the plan is to test the soil, mostly for pH, amend properly with lime if necessary, then work the soil with the landscape rake to clear the dead grasses and bust up the soil surface (I don’t have a disc harrow.)

I’ll then broadcast a “pasture mix” with a little added white clover, using the LandPride 500 broadcast hopper.

I don’t have a cultipacker, so I’ll used a chain harrow oriented with the tines up as a drag mat to get the seeds into the soil a bit, then keep the area irrigated.

My hope is that as this pasture mix gets established I’ll use the bush hog, set at about 3 inches, to hack off the weeds and let the grasses choke out the roots.

Sound like a viable plan? Thanks for your insight and experience!

 

[SidecarFlip]

Want a few more....? I'd like to get shut of the couple my wife has left. Horses are like boats. A boat is a hole in the water you throw money in. A horse is a hole in a pasture you also throw money into without any return. I'll stick with my cattle. One, I can eat them and two, they are a marketable commodity.

Guess if I lived in Canada I could eat a horse but not here...

Sounds like you plan is sound. No point in working up the ground too much, just set the Ph and overseed and set the seed with a drag. What I do to my mature hayfields all the time. Continual overseeding and Ph adjustment.

 

[quazz]

With 3/4 of an acre you have a lot of options that wouldn't be feasible in a big field. You could make it like a golf green if you wanted. Sidecar offers a very practical solution. I would do that. No, now that I see the picture and think about it and if I am honest, I would probably just mow it occasionally. I have many other things that need doing.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Hi all!

This will be Bessy II’s first spring and I want to finally get to work establishing a pasture-ish area on my homestead. It won’t be to support grazing animals right away, just look better, more controlled and groomed, than a weedy fire danger “vacant lot.” I’m hoping your experiences can help.

The ¾ acre site is south-facing in full sun, gently sloped down to the west and south. There’s no irrigation but I can get a hose and reciprocating sprinkler to it.

I’ve been hitting the indigenous weeds with glyphosate for the last 3 years and have managed to eliminate the oxeye daisy and most of the mullen. I gave the remaining grasses a good chop at 3 inches with the RCR1248LP brush hog last fall.

After the ground dries enough to work, the plan is to test the soil, mostly for pH, amend properly with lime if necessary, then work the soil with the landscape rake to clear the dead grasses and bust up the soil surface (I don’t have a disc harrow.)

I’ll then broadcast a “pasture mix” with a little added white clover, using the LandPride 500 broadcast hopper.

I don’t have a cultipacker, so I’ll used a chain harrow oriented with the tines up as a drag mat to get the seeds into the soil a bit, then keep the area irrigated.

My hope is that as this pasture mix gets established I’ll use the bush hog, set at about 3 inches, to hack off the weeds and let the grasses choke out the roots.

Sound like a viable plan? Thanks for your insight and experience!

I know this area really well.

Using a landscape rake to break it up will drive you insane with all the times your going to have to stop and clean off the tines, then all the junk you'll have to pick up.

If you want to do it 100% get a hold of me and I'll loan you a spring tooth harrow and spike tooth harrow to rip it up.
That will rip all the weed roots out and give you a 100% excellent seed bed to work with.

If you don't want to rip it up, wait another week (temps will be high enough), don't do anything to it ahead of time, then run a broadcast seeder with a spike tooth harrow behind it, I like running it with the seed falling into the spike tooth it really embeads it nicely, do that 2 directions, and then our spring rains will do all the work for you!
Let it over grow about 6" then mow it fairly short, I do 1 to 2 inches if flat enough, that stunts the weeds pretty good.
Then do a weed and feed and you'll get a really good stand of grass!

 

[JerryMT]

Hi all!

This will be Bessy II***8217;s first spring and I want to finally get to work establishing a pasture-ish area on my homestead. It won***8217;t be to support grazing animals right away, just look better, more controlled and groomed, than a weedy fire danger ***8220;vacant lot.***8221; I***8217;m hoping your experiences can help.

The ¾ acre site is south-facing in full sun, gently sloped down to the west and south. There***8217;s no irrigation but I can get a hose and reciprocating sprinkler to it.

I***8217;ve been hitting the indigenous weeds with glyphosate for the last 3 years and have managed to eliminate the oxeye daisy and most of the mullen. I gave the remaining grasses a good chop at 3 inches with the RCR1248LP brush hog last fall.


After the ground dries enough to work, the plan is to test the soil, mostly for pH, amend properly with lime if necessary, then work the soil with the landscape rake to clear the dead grasses and bust up the soil surface (I don***8217;t have a disc harrow.)

I***8217;ll then broadcast a ***8220;pasture mix***8221; with a little added white clover, using the LandPride 500 broadcast hopper.

I don***8217;t have a cultipacker, so I***8217;ll used a chain harrow oriented with the tines up as a drag mat to get the seeds into the soil a bit, then keep the area irrigated.

My hope is that as this pasture mix gets established I***8217;ll use the bush hog, set at about 3 inches, to hack off the weeds and let the grasses choke out the roots.

Sound like a viable plan? Thanks for your insight and experience!

Talk to your County Extension Agent before you go forward. He can give you some reference material about how to over seed a pasture. You can try frost seeding but the time to do that in the NW is like now. If you have a chain harrow, I'd use that with it at its greatest penetration to rough up the ground. A landscape rake is not a good idea. If you frost seed you won't have to do any back dragging with the chain harrow.

An alternative is to aggressively mow and not let any weeds go to seed. Eventually you can bring it back. Another alternative is to use a good broadleaf herbicide (Weedmaster, RifleD, etc) to kill all the broadleaf weeds and the just keep it mowed. It sounds like you are going for appearance and fire safety so why go through all that additional work. Watering will help bring it back quicker.

 

[BAP]

Before wasting your money on seed, I would get a soil test, which can be done at any time of the year as long as the ground is thawed enough to get a sample. If you have never done a soil test, read up or talk to your extension agent on how to get a proper sample. Then, if PH is low, apply lime and wait. If other nutrients are low, get them applied. Without tilling the soil, it takes a year or two for the lime to work into the soil far enough to raise the PH. Depending on the seed you are putting down, it may not germinate or take if the PH or other nutrients are too low. During that time, keep it mowed frequently to keep the weeds at bay. Poor outcomes from seeding aside from moisture, is the result of poor soil preparation. Overseeding works as long as it can work into the soil enough to germinate and the BIRDS do not eat it all. Good Luck

 

[D2Cat]

BAP, are you saying if birds eat the seeds they won't germinate? Why then are there so many Red Cedar trees growing in fence lines?

 

[GeoHorn]

BAP, are you saying if birds eat the seeds they won't germinate? Why then are there so many Red Cedar trees growing in fence lines?

Bird don’t eat cedar (juniper) berries. Rabbits, coyotes, and many small mammals ...eat the juniper berries, spread- ing the seed across the landscape. Mowing keeps them down except along fence lines.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Bird don’t eat cedar (juniper) berries. Rabbits, coyotes, and many small mammals ...eat the juniper berries, spread- ing the seed across the landscape. Mowing keeps them down except along fence lines.

I think your mixing up two different trees, cedar trees have seeds, not berries and yes birds eat them.

A juniper trees produces juniper berries and your right birds don't eat them.

 

[Creature Meadow]

I have had great luck using controlled burs to reclaim areas. Go around the perimeter to create a fire break, I use a disk.

Using the wind start your fire burning into the wind this way it will burn low and slow. This put good organic material back into the soil.

fire is a great tool, have my woods broke into 3 sections and on a 3 year rotation, works just a good on fields.

Then follow what the others are saying and do soil test then break up the surface and plant desired seed.

The burn can be done safely and removes much of the undesired debris and the field will thrive after the fire.

Good luck.

Jay

 

[GeoHorn]

I think your mixing up two different trees, cedar trees have seeds, not berries and yes birds eat them.

A juniper trees produces juniper berries and your right birds don't eat them.

Red Cedar = Juniperus virginiana.

(Before I had to find a new place to live after my parents discovered Id quit attending classes in order to hang around airplanes at the airport, I was a Forestry major.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniperus_virginiana

Researching this indicates birds DO eat them.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Sorry, I forget about you easterners and your weird little trees.

Huge difference between eastern cedar and western cedar!

Thuja plicata, commonly called western red cedar, Pacific red cedar, giant arborvitae, western arborvitae, giant cedar, or shinglewood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuja_plicata

 

[BAP]

BAP, are you saying if birds eat the seeds they won't germinate? Why then are there so many Red Cedar trees growing in fence lines?

Around here, if you don’t get your seed in the soil, you can loose 20-40% or more of the seed to bird loss. Good quality seed is expensive to loose.

 

[GeoHorn]

Often, seeds have a protective cover that require them to pass thru the digestive tract of an animal to germinate properly. The manure passed along with the seed germ helps the process along. (Ever see downstream from a sewage treatment plant and notice all the tomato plants growing alongside the stream? Well, don’t eat the tomatoes as it takes two generations of plants to dispose of some types of pathogens.)

 

[JerryMT]

I think your mixing up two different trees, cedar trees have seeds, not berries and yes birds eat them.

A juniper trees produces juniper berries and your right birds don't eat them.

People in the SW often refer to what we call junipers as "cedar". They don't see western red cedar trees as we know them
in that part of the country.

 

[D2Cat]

Here's the trees we have everywhere, all along fence lines.....birds enjoying a break from eating! They either have to be cut off or burned by fire.

Some folks plant staggered rows to provide a north wind break. They do a good job of that.

They have seeds birds and coons enjoy eating.

 

[Poohbear]

Fif your not pickie about what type grass, just throw down 1 Bahia seed, wait a couple days then try to kill it. It will spread like wildfire.

 

[D2Cat]

Or Johnson grass!

BAP, if you notice my post about birds eating seeds, I had a couple of those green big grins at the end. I think you were referring to if the birds ate the planted grass seed there would be no lawn because it would not germinate.

I was referring to seed in general. Birds eat seed, carry it off in their digestive system, deposit it where ever they land and start a new crop! It germinates, just not where mankind wanted it.

 

[Russell King]

You may want to luck into seed balls, where the seed is rolled into a ball with clay. It helps in several ways = birds won’t eat the seeds, seed will be in contact with the ground due to weight of ball, ball will stay solid until enough rain has fallen to soften it and seed will germinate while wet.

And I personally would avoid weed and feed types of fertilizer since the weed killer can travel through the soil and get to the trees that are down hill of the field.


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