Fescue?

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Jlore

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Is fescue grass that you guys and gals talk about sowing in your pasture the same grass that I seeded my lawn with or is there a fescue that is specially made for cows to eat.
If you.couldnt tell by my post I am very new to this fourm and raising steer in general. Thanks for your input!
 
There are a jillion types of fescue. The typical lawn types are lower groing, i.e. chewings fescue, creeping red fescue, etc. Pasture fescue (which we also use in the lawns because we have the seed from the pastures) is usually Tallfescue like KY31 or one of it's variations.
 
Agree with bigfoot - the endophyte free varieties *might* be OK for a hay field, but in my experience, if you ever overgraze them or get into a drought situation, they turn 'toes-up'.
KY-31 is iron-clad - but there are some issues with it that necessitate proper maintenance of legumes(clovers, lespedeza, trefoil, etc.) in the stand to dilute out toxic effects.
Most of my farm is now planted with one of the 'novel' endophyte fescue varieties(Max-Q), but it's pricey, and I would never recommend anyone kill out a good established stand of KY-31 to plant it. Starting from a blank slate, as in reclaiming corn/bean ground, yeah - but not killing out an established stand to do it.
 
I enodrse what Lucky-P said......

However I far prefer a mixed grass and legume pasture....
the more species the better....
good for the livestock and good for the soil....

but this requires managment and managed rotational grazing....
 
After our 4 months of no rain and everything brown and dried up (even the weeds were dieing) we got a couple of inches of rain the very end of September. Of course the weeds sprang back but the KY31 fescue looks like it was never brown and stressed. The oddity is that we planted a small patch of millet 5 years ago way back in a far back corner of the property (about a half acre out of 240) Now we have millet coming up in everything. The spots that the fescue didn;t fill in the millet has. I'm hoping the fescue will come back enough to choke the crap out.
 
To the previous I'll add that the OG still appears to be just dead clumps but the WSG has come along and is even starting to head out. The big bluestem is heading out about a foot high instead of 6 foot high but at least it's coming back. Dryness has to be pretty severe when the WSG goes dormant in a well extablished field of the stuff.
 
Dun

interested in your comments about warm season grass....
conservationist around here have been trying to push it for grazing....
My experience is it is very difficult to establish. taking 18 mos or more...
also requires very good managment with well timed grazing....
very narrow window of utilization....
and stock must be kept off of it when not being grazed.
At least that is how it is around here....
I have planted several species and the only place I have any left is in fencelines with electric fence or around the pond that we fenced out years ago. We do flash graze the pond once or twice a year in an effort to still be able to see it. My new neighbor has grazed it less and the brush growth has been phenominal. I spent a half day a couple of weeks ago clearing around my solar setup.
 
pdfangus":2h0494ct said:
Dun

interested in your comments about warm season grass....
conservationist around here have been trying to push it for grazing....
My experience is it is very difficult to establish. taking 18 mos or more...
also requires very good managment with well timed grazing....
very narrow window of utilization....
and stock must be kept off of it when not being grazed.
At least that is how it is around here....
I have planted several species and the only place I have any left is in fencelines with electric fence or around the pond that we fenced out years ago. We do flash graze the pond once or twice a year in an effort to still be able to see it. My new neighbor has grazed it less and the brush growth has been phenominal. I spent a half day a couple of weeks ago clearing around my solar setup.
We only have 27 acres of WSG. It is time consuming to establish. Our cows wouldn;t eat the stuff until I learned a trick. Turn them in when it's only 6 inches high and rotate them every few days. We break the field into smaller sections with polywire and graze it in rotation June through July and a little into Aug. In non-drought years it will grow dense and 6 foot tall by the first freeze. After the first freeze I brush hog it to a foot or so in swaths so you can see far enough to hunt it. Then we don;t touch it (we alwasy plan on burning it in the spring when the volenteer fescue starts but by then the winds are too high and it never get it done). Then by early june it's up about 6 inches or so and we start rotating them through it. We've only done it for the past 3 years, beofre that we hayed it. It was always rough but through the winters its gotten to the point that you can only drive on it at a crawl and it still trips the disc mower. Spend more time resetting it then I do mowing.
The previous owner used to disc it at 30 miles an hour I think. Every 10 feet was a foot tall ridge. I disced it back and forth and cross ways and dragged it then disced it again. Planted WW in it one year then disced it and drug it again. Those ridges still seem to pop up and get worse every year. Now that it's permanenetly in WSG I can't disc it and try to smooth it anymore.
 

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