Who doesn't fertilize?

[Banjo]

Its not just the beef that leaves, its also the growth/maintenance on the cows as well in a pasture. They eat off the entire pasture and only drop back manure in small places, the darker greener spots - so thats showing you where they are putting back into the grass, but removing from every where else.

I totally follow that train of thought, but are the nutrients we're talking about adding N, P, and K being mined, or is the absence of organic matter/soil life etc more of an issue, than those three nutrients. I don't know.

I heard someone say once that there was enough minerals in the ground to last a 1000 years. What a soil test reveals is only whats available. Someone mentioned earlier about grass clippings and their yard. Has anyone ever soil tested their yard? Would probably show it needs nothing, especially if your letting them lay and not bagging them.
Everyone needs to be doing some form of rotational grazing. Clipping pastures behind the cattle and pastures that are starting to get away from you. IMO grass needs to be stimulated to grow whenever it starts getting mature or slowing down.....much the same way we do a yard only higher and longer between clippings.

 

[Bigfoot]

Its not just the beef that leaves, its also the growth/maintenance on the cows as well in a pasture. They eat off the entire pasture and only drop back manure in small places, the darker greener spots - so thats showing you where they are putting back into the grass, but removing from every where else.

I totally follow that train of thought, but are the nutrients we're talking about adding N, P, and K being mined, or is the absence of organic matter/soil life etc more of an issue, than those three nutrients. I don't know.

I heard someone say once that there was enough minerals in the ground to last a 1000 years. What a soil test reveals is only whats available. Someone mentioned earlier about grass clippings and their yard. Has anyone ever soil tested their yard? Would probably show it needs nothing, especially if your letting them lay and not bagging them.
Everyone needs to be doing some form of rotational grazing. Clipping pastures behind the cattle and pastures that are starting to get away from you. IMO grass needs to be stimulated to grow whenever it starts getting mature or slowing down.....much the same way we do a yard only higher and longer between clippings.

I've quit clipping pasture. I'm starting to think that may have been a mistake. I can't tell it is. In fact the opposite is what my eyes are telling me. Common sense tells me I'm not adding back organic matter.

 

[Banjo]

I've quit clipping pasture. I'm starting to think that may have been a mistake. I can't tell it is. In fact the opposite is what my eyes are telling me. Common sense tells me I'm not adding back organic matter.

I'm unclear about that post. What do you think is a mistake?

 

[Bigfoot]

I've quit clipping pasture. I'm starting to think that may have been a mistake. I can't tell it is. In fact the opposite is what my eyes are telling me. Common sense tells me I'm not adding back organic matter.

I'm unclear about that post. What do you think is a mistake?

Sorry. It's even unclear to me when I read it.

I have quit clipping my pasture. Stopped maybe 3 years ago. Stopping bush hogging may have been a mistake.

 

[Banjo]

Ok I got it now BF.
Last year I let a few pastures grow up until fall. That was a mistake looking back. Those same pastures have been very slow about coming on this spring. I all but parked my bushhog last year, thinking I was wasting time and fuel.
Up until last year I was grazing till about mid feb. before needing to feed hay. This past winter I barely made it to the first of the year. I think what happens besides not returning organic matter to the soil is......that the grass if it gets to mature or "old" it begins to atrophy just like an unused muscle.
I have been clipping a lot this spring and I can already tell the pastures look better and are thickening up.

 

[Luckiamute]

Do u people feed your calves or even u our cows? If you don't give theme something, either in the form of feed, hay, rotational grazing, just grass, they won't grow very well. Same way with grass, do the soil test and feed it what it needs and soon it will really grow and maybe not need much added.

Exactly! Couldn't agree with you more.

 

[pdfangus]

Thanks, It's just nice if it's possible to turn the cows onto it if you feel like it.. apparently it's mostly the seed pods that have some toxicity to them

I am told that down here...Virginia...the season is not long enough for the sun hemp to develop seed pods....
so the toxicity is not an issue for us...
i dunno about where you are because I am unfamiliar with your climate...I know you are north of me but you are pretty far west of me as well.

 

[Clodhopper]

In this old world, you don't get something for nothing, so some form of fertilizer better be used. Removing the weeds is nearly as important, and it's best to give the ground some rest. I started renting a pasture in 2013 that had briar patches over my head and fifty foot around, and the rest was overgrown with ironweed, some thistles, and a few bull nettles. Bushhogging helped, but when I started spraying Crossbow or 2,4D in the spring, that made all the difference in the world. The clover doesn't get hurt, but the taller broadleaves do. I have to pull the cows from Nov-April, so it gets some rest. The fescue is so thick you can hardly walk through it by mid May. I would like to rotational graze this place, but it's 15 miles from home and the pond isn't in a good spot, so the girls get their pick.

 

[ddd75]

IMO.. bushhogging is one of the worst things you could do to a pasture. it rips leaves, making them take a lot of energy to heal that bad cut.

 

[True Grit Farms]

The more you mow the thicker the grass gets. Mowing is a good thing, look at how poor land that is put into the different fallow programs look.

 

[ChrisB]

In my area, if it is smooth enough to drive over with a fertilizer spreader it would have been plowed up 70 years ago and put into corn. My pastures have never had fertilizer added, I probably would if I could though.

 

[Banjo]

IMO.. bushhogging is one of the worst things you could do to a pasture. it rips leaves, making them take a lot of energy to heal that bad cut.

IMO you need to sharpen your bushhog blades. I do mine anyway. They are almost as sharp as disc mower blades.
It gives you a much, much smoother cut unlike the ripping and beating the leaves off that blunt blades will do.

 

[Banjo]

The more you mow the thicker the grass gets. Mowing is a good thing, look at how poor land that is put into the different fallow programs look.

I agree. Like I posted earlier.....I let some stand all year last year and it just went south. But I probably added a lot of clover and fescue seed to the seedbank.

 

[Dave]

I try to give the pastures a shot of N every spring. About 50 pounds of actual N per acre. On rare occasions I give a shot of P and K as tests show it is needed. It is a fact that you loss about 25% of the N that passes through the cow to volitilization. More on hot dry windy days less on cool calm days. An average ton of hay takes about 40 pounds of N, 30 pounds of K, and 8 pounds of P with it when it leaves the field. I have had to buy less fertilizer ever since I started buying hay which imported nutrients out of someone fields. Someone said something about soil testing lawns. Before I retired I tested over a hundred lawns a year. They were often low in one nutrient or another. In fact it was rare to find one that had well balanced nutrients in the soil.

 

[ddd75]

IMO.. bushhogging is one of the worst things you could do to a pasture. it rips leaves, making them take a lot of energy to heal that bad cut.

IMO you need to sharpen your bushhog blades. I do mine anyway. They are almost as sharp as disc mower blades.
It gives you a much, much smoother cut unlike the ripping and beating the leaves off that blunt blades will do.

i don't care how much you sharpen them. I bushhog blade will never be as sharp as a disc mower knife or spin near as fast.. which is more important then how sharp it is.

I never said mowing wasn't good. I said BUSHHOGGING wasn't good. If you are going to mow pasture, a disc mower is the way to do it.

 

[Banjo]

I'm sure all yards are not created equal. most yards around here are cut as short as possible in order to delay the next cutting. The shorter its cut the lower the crown sets in the plant, then slowly all the good grasses start dying out. leaving mostly crabgrass and Bermuda grass. you can tell by how brown it is over the winter.

If grass was cut up around 4 inches or so for a year or two they would have to improve as a general rule. As to whether the nutrients would be in perfect balance....it may or may not. If it was lacking in one nutrient or another and that was added.....it was seem logical the yard would feed on itself and need nothing for infinite.

 

[Banjo]

IMO.. bushhogging is one of the worst things you could do to a pasture. it rips leaves, making them take a lot of energy to heal that bad cut.

IMO you need to sharpen your bushhog blades. I do mine anyway. They are almost as sharp as disc mower blades.
It gives you a much, much smoother cut unlike the ripping and beating the leaves off that blunt blades will do.

i don't care how much you sharpen them. I bushhog blade will never be as sharp as a disc mower knife or spin near as fast.. which is more important then how sharp it is.

I never said mowing wasn't good. I said BUSHHOGGING wasn't good. If you are going to mow pasture, a disc mower is the way to do it.

I have to disagree.
You would have a little difficulty clipping up around 8 to 10 inches at times or all the time with a disc mower unless you modified it some way. If it was very thick the residue would smother the grass, where a bushhog will mulch it.
If the pasture was thin or continuously grazed with untouched spots here and there.....then a disc mower may be alright.
As far as sharp bushhog blades go....you may need to get new ones, they are easier to sharpen and keep sharp than blades that are blunt from cutting trees and breaking rocks and maybe have never been sharpened.
The speed of the blades isn't an issue IMO. Rotary mowers and disc mowers both spin fast enough.

 

[snoopdog]

Interesting thread and responses , late this winter I started renovating some acreage,40, that was overgrown and overgrazed to the point erosion was a real concern . I started by clipping what growth was there , weeds, rank fescue, greenbriars, and yes honey locust, the hog got a workout . Then I put fertilizer down, heavy, I have since clipped some areas again. Now, we have had a wet spring , and I have enough grass to easily support twice as many head, for now. I would rather clip a 3rd time for this year . I know my input costs are soaring, but this is startup. I have some hot wires to run to better utilize everything next year , it just wasn't possible this time around. On our homeplace, which is 9 acres useable, in a good year with adequate rainfall , fertilization , and rotational grazing, we have ran 6 pair, a bull, 10 stocker steers , and baled 500 squares. Some will scuffaw, and that's ok, it was an ideal year and not likely repeated. And certainly not sustainable .

 

[ddd75]

IMO you need to sharpen your bushhog blades. I do mine anyway. They are almost as sharp as disc mower blades.
It gives you a much, much smoother cut unlike the ripping and beating the leaves off that blunt blades will do.

i don't care how much you sharpen them. I bushhog blade will never be as sharp as a disc mower knife or spin near as fast.. which is more important then how sharp it is.

I never said mowing wasn't good. I said BUSHHOGGING wasn't good. If you are going to mow pasture, a disc mower is the way to do it.

I have to disagree.
You would have a little difficulty clipping up around 8 to 10 inches at times or all the time with a disc mower unless you modified it some way. If it was very thick the residue would smother the grass, where a bushhog will mulch it.
If the pasture was thin or continuously grazed with untouched spots here and there.....then a disc mower may be alright.
As far as sharp bushhog blades go....you may need to get new ones, they are easier to sharpen and keep sharp than blades that are blunt from cutting trees and breaking rocks and maybe have never been sharpened.
The speed of the blades isn't an issue IMO. Rotary mowers and disc mowers both spin fast enough.

oh ok :lol2: a disc mower can't clip 10" grass? :lol2:

post a picture of your pasture and lets see how well the bushhog does.


smother the grass?? even if you cut 3' tall grass thick as could be it would never "smother" the grass to prevent growing.

 

[ddd75]

Interesting thread and responses , late this winter I started renovating some acreage,40, that was overgrown and overgrazed to the point erosion was a real concern . I started by clipping what growth was there , weeds, rank fescue, greenbriars, and yes honey locust, the hog got a workout . Then I put fertilizer down, heavy, I have since clipped some areas again. Now, we have had a wet spring , and I have enough grass to easily support twice as many head, for now. I would rather clip a 3rd time for this year . I know my input costs are soaring, but this is startup. I have some hot wires to run to better utilize everything next year , it just wasn't possible this time around. On our homeplace, which is 9 acres useable, in a good year with adequate rainfall , fertilization , and rotational grazing, we have ran 6 pair, a bull, 10 stocker steers , and baled 500 squares. Some will scuffaw, and that's ok, it was an ideal year and not likely repeated. And certainly not sustainable .

obviously I'm not advocating to NEVER bushhog a piece of ground, but a great stand of grass, a bushhog has no place.