Post by daisyhill on Mar 13, 2018 22:16:01 GMT -5
Here's the deal: we're turning an odd seven acre field back into pasture. It was pasture for many years and is such an odd shape, not level and with a couple of good sized spinneys so it is really best suited for pasture. The past three years it has been in organic corn, soybeans or rye cover crop, alternately (we had rented it to the organic farmer who farms some of the family land). Last year was corn. By harvest time, the field was fairly weedy, mainly with grasses. It has a 20 foot buffer strip that is still in grass, as well as a wide grass water way, and the grass in the spinneys.
I'm trying to find that Goldilocks spot between the cheapest and the best way to turn it back into pasture.
What if I frost seed some clover this week in the cornfield area, and then along about the middle of May, go ahead and just let the cows have the whole thing for a little while--they can eat the buffer strip, the waterway, the grass around the spinney, and the strip by the edge of the creek, as well as any attractive grasses or weeds amongst the corn stover. Then I'd mow it along about Memorial Day (we usually take our first cutting of hay about then) to deal with the big weeds, and let it rest while I rotate them through the other pastures. Then continue mowing/grazing judiciously with small paddocks/fast rotation. I'm thinking that in a couple of years we'd have some decent pasture building up, and we would be able to utilize what grass there is right now, which we badly need.
Or we could disc it all and plant a good pasture mix--then we'd have to keep the cows out of it for at least a year I understand. This would be expensive.
Or could we plant the pasture mix along with a nurse crop, like oats? We've done this for alfalfa, and cut the oats in the boot stage for hay (we don't have a way to combine the oats). Then we'd get some feed off the field even if we can't graze it yet.
I'm interested in ideas, experience, things you all have read or heard or tried.
I'm trying to find that Goldilocks spot between the cheapest and the best way to turn it back into pasture.
What if I frost seed some clover this week in the cornfield area, and then along about the middle of May, go ahead and just let the cows have the whole thing for a little while--they can eat the buffer strip, the waterway, the grass around the spinney, and the strip by the edge of the creek, as well as any attractive grasses or weeds amongst the corn stover. Then I'd mow it along about Memorial Day (we usually take our first cutting of hay about then) to deal with the big weeds, and let it rest while I rotate them through the other pastures. Then continue mowing/grazing judiciously with small paddocks/fast rotation. I'm thinking that in a couple of years we'd have some decent pasture building up, and we would be able to utilize what grass there is right now, which we badly need.
Or we could disc it all and plant a good pasture mix--then we'd have to keep the cows out of it for at least a year I understand. This would be expensive.
Or could we plant the pasture mix along with a nurse crop, like oats? We've done this for alfalfa, and cut the oats in the boot stage for hay (we don't have a way to combine the oats). Then we'd get some feed off the field even if we can't graze it yet.
I'm interested in ideas, experience, things you all have read or heard or tried.