Very neglected pasture advice needed

[tbgurl]

My husband and I finally made our lifelong dreams come true and bought ourselves a 26 acre hobby farm. It has a pole barn and a couple of already fenced pastures. The upper pasture next to the barn is about 1.7 acres and the lower pasture by the woods is 2.5 acres. It is all barbed wire, so we are going to replace it all with poly rope electric but hopefully use the wood posts that are already there.

My question is about the plant life growing in the pastures. Right now it is very overgrown but we will be mowing it down with the bush hog as soon as it stops raining and dries out a bit. But it looks like the majority of the pasture is weeds. I can see that there is grass growing (orchard grass, Kentucky blue Grass, smooth bromegrass, and maybe some tall fescue based on the seed heads). There is definitely Johnson grass in a few patches. Lots of burdock, bull thistle, and tons and tons of goldenrod.

Will mowing be enough to control the weeds and allow the grass to grow again or should we spray an herbicide and reseed? I would say more than half of the upper pasture is weeds. Part of me just wants to kill it all and start over with a good grass mix but that might be excessive…

Our neighbor is leasing part of our land to farm row crops… If we asked him to spray and reseed for us what would be a fair price to offer? We do have a compact tractor but don’t have a sprayer or seeder implement for it (yet).

Also should add that we have no horses here yet so lots of time before any grazing pressure is put on it (at least until next summer, possibly two years).

[Guilherme]

Contact your local County Extension Agent. Schedule a site visit (you’ve already paid for the service with your taxes) and let them advise you on precisely what you have. Explain to them what you want to do and they will give you some idea of different ways to do it.

If you are a novice at this then you don’t tell them, they tell you!!! Pay attention; this is how they make their living. Of course they are neither infallible nor omniscient. If they tell you something that disturbs you then check it out. You’ve got Google and the world wide web at your service. Just remember that you KNOW who you Agent is; you don’t necessarily know anything about web advice (including this advice ).

You don’t say where you are and that makes a BIG difference in selection of best practices. You might be get away with just aggressive weed mowing; you might need to add things like 2,4,D to knock the weeds down and give the grass that is there the best chance; you might need to go to RoundUp and kill what you have and re-seed. Listen to the Agent; their advice will likely be good.

Best of luck as you go forward.

G.

[goodhors]

Above advice is very good.

My additions to that is mowing always helps, frequently if possible. Mowing to a height of 5-6 inches prevents burning the dirt, shocking the grass plants,. Don’ t let grass go to seed or get taller than about 10 inches before mowing again. If weather goes to drought, quit mowing. Weeds grow faster than grass, so you prevent reseeding with regular mowing.

I would not till up soil at this time of year, heading into hot summer, with possible lack of rain. I would wait for fall to do that. Any new seed has a better chance of regular rain for good growth in early fall, put down good roots for winter survival. You can get soil samples now and test them, to have results at hand for fall fertilizing.

Ask for Ammonium Sulphate as your nitrogen source, much safer to use than Urea, for grazing animals. At the fertilizer plant repeat that fertilizer is for HORSES, NO UREA in your mix. They automatically give you Urea if not specified otherwise. Both products cost about the same here. Urea can cause problems for any grazing animals, so best to avoid it. Buying from a fertilizer plant means they mix just the minerals you need, not a generic product. Land gets what it needs in the proper proportion, nothing in excess to be wasted and wash away. I rent their spreader wagon, use the PTO on tractor for easy, fast application. My small tractor manages the load, though we have rolling ground, not real hills.

County Agent should be very helpful with local conditions, improving quality of the fields.

We are going thru similar rehabbing of a couple new, small fields. Last year was the weed mowing, tilling one field, reseeding it, spraying herbicide for weeds. Did not get soil test done or fertilizer applied last year. Soil test this year showed severe deficiencies in minerals needed to produce grass/hay. Funny because what grasses that were growing, which I mowed down, “looked” so nice! Ha ha Just no nutrition in them. Actually just spread fertilizer on fields yesterday, because ground had been too soft to drive the heavy wagon over without getting stuck in my clay dirt. This is about 2 1/2 months behind normal spreading in late March or April. This is a very odd year.

[tbgurl]

@Guilherme

Contact your local County Extension Agent. Schedule a site visit (you’ve already paid for the service with your taxes) and let them advise you on precisely what you have. Explain to them what you want to do and they will give you some idea of different ways to do it.

If you are a novice at this then you don’t tell them, they tell you!!! Pay attention; this is how they make their living. Of course they are neither infallible nor omniscient. If they tell you something that disturbs you then check it out. You’ve got Google and the world wide web at your service. Just remember that you KNOW who you Agent is; you don’t necessarily know anything about web advice (including this advice ).

You don’t say where you are and that makes a BIG difference in selection of best practices. You might be get away with just aggressive weed mowing; you might need to add things like 2,4,D to knock the weeds down and give the grass that is there the best chance; you might need to go to RoundUp and kill what you have and re-seed. Listen to the Agent; their advice will likely be good.

Best of luck as you go forward.

G.

Thank you, Guilherme! I called this morning and made an appointment for an extension agent to come out on Friday. He sounded like I woke him up from a nap and a little less than enthused about coming up, so I will keep my fingers crossed for getting good advice and will definitely cross reference what he tells me 😆.

PS: updated my location to show I’m in western Wisconsin…you’re right, location makes a big difference!

[tbgurl]

@goodhors

Above advice is very good.

My additions to that is mowing always helps, frequently if possible. Mowing to a height of 5-6 inches prevents burning the dirt, shocking the grass plants,. Don’ t let grass go to seed or get taller than about 10 inches before mowing again. If weather goes to drought, quit mowing. Weeds grow faster than grass, so you prevent reseeding with regular mowing.

I would not till up soil at this time of year, heading into hot summer, with possible lack of rain. I would wait for fall to do that. Any new seed has a better chance of regular rain for good growth in early fall, put down good roots for winter survival. You can get soil samples now and test them, to have results at hand for fall fertilizing.

Ask for Ammonium Sulphate as your nitrogen source, much safer to use than Urea, for grazing animals. At the fertilizer plant repeat that fertilizer is for HORSES, NO UREA in your mix. They automatically give you Urea if not specified otherwise. Both products cost about the same here. Urea can cause problems for any grazing animals, so best to avoid it. Buying from a fertilizer plant means they mix just the minerals you need, not a generic product. Land gets what it needs in the proper proportion, nothing in excess to be wasted and wash away. I rent their spreader wagon, use the PTO on tractor for easy, fast application. My small tractor manages the load, though we have rolling ground, not real hills.

County Agent should be very helpful with local conditions, improving quality of the fields.

We are going thru similar rehabbing of a couple new, small fields. Last year was the weed mowing, tilling one field, reseeding it, spraying herbicide for weeds. Did not get soil test done or fertilizer applied last year. Soil test this year showed severe deficiencies in minerals needed to produce grass/hay. Funny because what grasses that were growing, which I mowed down, “looked” so nice! Ha ha Just no nutrition in them. Actually just spread fertilizer on fields yesterday, because ground had been too soft to drive the heavy wagon over without getting stuck in my clay dirt. This is about 2 1/2 months behind normal spreading in late March or April. This is a very odd year.

Thank you, Goodhors. I didn’t realize I could rent a spreader. I will look into that! Very good point about the urea not being good for grazing animals. I will make sure that any fertilizer I get does not include urea.

I will start now with getting soil tested so I have an idea of what I will need to add before planting.

Thank you!

[stargzng386]

Buy or rent goats, they LOVE weeds and prefer them over any grasses. I’m actually seeding their field in weeds/browsing plants because they are leaving the grass and I still have to mow to keep it knocked down but they eat all the weeds in the area.

[Guilherme]

@stargzng386

Buy or rent goats, they LOVE weeds and prefer them over any grasses. I’m actually seeding their field in weeds/browsing plants because they are leaving the grass and I still have to mow to keep it knocked down but they eat all the weeds in the area.

Better to run pigs. They will not only eat the weeds they will plow up the roots. We did it years ago in a woody patch and at the end of a year it looked like well cleared public park!

Goats are great on fence lines but you have to tether them or have really good fencing! With pigs a single strand of electric will do the job.

G.

[stargzng386]

@Guilherme

Better to run pigs. They will not only eat the weeds they will plow up the roots. We did it years ago in a woody patch and at the end of a year it looked like well cleared public park!

Goats are great on fence lines but you have to tether them or have really good fencing! With pigs a single strand of electric will do the job.

G.

That’s good to know! My cousin raises a lot of cattle, goats and sheep for grass fed meats and pigs are the only thing she wasn’t able to contain with electric so just from her experience you might still need a fence. Most goat people I know (Nigerian dwarfs) can contain them with the mesh electric fencing but do lock them up at night from predators.

[Bluey]

Extension agents are good to pick their brains, but I would also check with your local USDA Farm Service office and ask for the Natural Resources officer.
Those are the ones that have those neat programs where they will help you decide what you want and even cost share costs of improving your pastures.
They have drills/planters to get seed in and other you may need.
Also your taxes at work there.
Try them, they may be more awake when you call.

[avjudge]

@stargzng386

That’s good to know! My cousin raises a lot of cattle, goats and sheep for grass fed meats and pigs are the only thing she wasn’t able to contain with electric so just from her experience you might still need a fence.

I went to a fencing workshop and in the section on training stock to an electric fence, they said that you need a special set-up to train pigs because when they’re shocked they’ll run right through the fence instead of turning back away from it. So they said to set the training fence up in front of a wall, so when the pigs go for the bait and get shocked & run, the wall forces them to run away from the fence rather than through it. Then once the pigs know to avoid the fence you don’t need the wall.

The same outfit (Wellscroft in NH) also uses - and recommended to us - pigs to “plow” land that’s being cleared, similar to what Guilherme recommended.

Again, this is just what I was told by people who should know - I have no personal experience!

[Guilherme]

@avjudge

I went to a fencing workshop and in the section on training stock to an electric fence, they said that you need a special set-up to train pigs because when they’re shocked they’ll run right through the fence instead of turning back away from it. So they said to set the training fence up in front of a wall, so when the pigs go for the bait and get shocked & run, the wall forces them to run away from the fence rather than through it. Then once the pigs know to avoid the fence you don’t need the wall.

The same outfit (Wellscroft in NH) also uses - and recommended to us - pigs to “plow” land that’s being cleared, similar to what Guilherme recommended.

Again, this is just what I was told by people who should know - I have no personal experience!

Our pigs must have smarter 'cause they didn’t do that and one good shock and they didn’t come back!

But accustoming livestock to electricity IS a Good Thing.

We had a BIG snowstorm (28", which is Snowmageddon in East TN) and the wire was covered. The swine never even approached where it was. Smart critters!!!

G.

[stargzng386]

That’s interesting about the wall! I was actually with my cousin when she put her pigs in the electric fenced area (with a regular fence behind it) she just put an electric line near the bottom. She had it cranked up to the level they use with her cows and the pigs would walk into it squeal once then ignore it. They must have done it 10/15 times while we stood there. She tried charging it higher but never got them to pay any attention to it. Maybe the breed of pig makes a difference too. She’s well versed in electric for goats/sheep/cows so idk.

[jawa]

Mowing regularly will keep most weeds at bay and allow the grass to grow. Getting a soil test to see what your ph is and what fertilizer blend is best to add is another layer of helping the grass to out compete the weeds. Spraying a broadleaf weed killer is another way to allow the grass to get a stronger foothold. You could rent a seed drill and over seed your pastures in the fall to get a better stand of grasses growing.

If you have grasses growing in your pastures, I would be hesitant to plow under or Round Up and drill a new pasture. It will take the new grass a year or more to become established enough to handle grazing.

[HungarianHippo]

When we bought our much-neglected farm, the fields were all chest-high with weeds, goldenrod, etc. Looked nothing like “pasture”. It took maybe 2 seasons of regular mowing for it to become nice mixed-grass pasture. Can’t ever turn our backs on the mowing, of course-- there’s a lifetime of weed seeds in there :lol: But have heart, restoring the grass takes less time than you think.
Congrats on the farm!!! It’s a great life.

[enjoytheride]

I would just keep it mowed to give the grass a chance to compete, then in the spring treat with a weed killer/fertilizer. 2D is the standard and is safe for horses. You want to time it so it stays on the weeds for 24 hours at least but not when it’s hot and dry because it will burn your grass.

If it’s really long now I would see if your farmer wants to round bale it and sell it for cows, that will keep it from covering and killing your grass if you bush hog it. You can offer it to him for free, the time saved by you is worth it. My farmer wouldn’t take mine for free and traded me some horse hay so it was a huge bonus.

[eightpondfarm]

We have an organic farm…at least the land and pastures are. (animals are chemically treated when necessary). I don’t use 2-4-D products or RoundUp on our fields and pastures at all. Goldenrod and burdock and bullthistle are easily eradicated with strategic mowing. When i take them down is when they are right at the early bloom stage. When all their energy has gone into the flower and they have less reserve strength to try to grow and rebloom. Annuals are pretty easily to control. Horse nettle Johnsongrass …they’re a different story. Horsenettle does hate to be mowed…so constant mowing can control it…keep it from going to seed. Discing it only brings it rebounding with enthusiasm! Johnsongrass can be controlled by mowing too. Being a tall grass it competes by height, take that away and it can get crowded out. When i’m after a particular invasive plant i go to war… I’ve successfully removed: dogbane, lategrowing tall thoroughwart, white snakeroot and have decreased the perilla mint to about 20% of what it used to be. All by mechanical means. It’s more difficult to keep without herbicides, but more friendly to the earth. I’ve enriched our pastures by seeding legumes… Korean lespediza is a good undergrowth legume. It covers the soil and keeps moisture in, It adds nitrogen to the soil, doesn’t cause bloat when grazed, though it is more palatable when hayed then when growing.

[Bluey]

Did you check with the USDA office, see if you qualify for any of their cost sharing programs to help you with your pasture and maybe even fencing?
They also have the drill you need if you want to sow.

[tbgurl]

@Bluey

Did you check with the USDA office, see if you qualify for any of their cost sharing programs to help you with your pasture and maybe even fencing?
They also have the drill you need if you want to sow.

I have not yet but I did look quickly at their website. It looks like their CRP Grassland program would provide some cost sharing for pasture improvements and possibly rental income for keeping it in pasture for 10-15 years. I will check with the FSA office soon and see what they have to say. Thanks for the tip!