Is fertilizing even needed?

[Banjo]

That being what it is, Banjo, if you are taking a crop from the land then it is like an equation: to keep it in balance you have to put something back. Hauling your hay from the field every year is the same as going out there and loading minerals including elemental N, C, K, Ca, P, selenium, etc in a loader bucket and dumping it on your neighbors farm. Eventually, for those elements to be in good supply they have to be replaced. A plant makes its own food (carbohydrates) via photosynthesis, but to build cell walls, plastids, mitochondria and to carry on cell metabolism it must have elements. That is what fertilizer does but even fertilizer is very limited as most of what we get is only N-P-K. Limestone is much more diverse since it is ground limestone which will contain other elements in addition to Ca. But make no mistake, land wears out if there is no replacement of elements. I am trying to rebuild hay fields on my farm where the elements have been removed by crops and leaching. Remember, the bedrock is the ultimate source of elements but it takes geologic time to oxidize and weather to make those elements usable by the plant.[/quote]

What I was talking about was if a piece of ground has been mowed off for a couple of years and it is standing there looking great without anything, then IMO nothing is needed. I do realize you can't take and take forever without giving back. IMO cutting hay off of a hayfield two and three times a year is one the hardest things you can do to your soil. That's why I have quit cutting hay off of my own land. Exchanging chemical acid fertilize for organic matter( hay) is a poor trade IMO unless one wants to continually burn out what little organic matter there is left in most soils. The best way to build soil is thru high stock density planned grazing with long recovery periods. If I did cut hay off my own ground I would only cut it off once and rotational graze it the rest of the year or let it stockpile if you have fescue/orchardgrass for winter grazing.

 

[greybeard]

Do you fertilize your yard? The average yard around here don't get fertilized, don't need it, and still some people mow twice a week. If its only getting low quality organic matter, then why does it grow like crazy? It's because your feeding the ecosystem below the grass. Don't get me wrong fertilize does work...its the miracle of the 20th century but it stimulates biological activity at a very accelerated rate which breaksdown the humus in the soil too much.

There's a big difference in a lawn, which has the sole purposes of holding soil in place and just looking good--and a pasture whose sole and only purpose is to provide continuous high quality food for livestock. When that lawnmower runs over your grass, it is not digesting and removing anything but the tops of the grass from the lawn. Livestock on th other hand, cuts it, digests it, processes it, and removes nutrients from it, and only puts back a portion of what was there before.

But even a lawn, will almost always need feeding at some point. Decomposition of the cuttings helps a lot, but the energy and nutrients consumed in regrowth each week surpasses what the mulching is able to return to the soil.

Rowdy:
Dunno about your region, but around here, people usually buy or bale some lower value hay (1st cutting) that hasn't been fertilized yet, as well as some good hay and they alternate what they feed, keeping some good hay for the coldest wettest part of winter. 1st cutting is almost always cheaper, with the downside being it is going to have some weeds mixed in with it too.

 

[Bigfoot]

I'm not going to weigh in on the organic matter verses chemicle fertilizer thing. When I don't know what I'm talking about, I just don't talk. I have however marveled at my yards ability to stay green, and grow considering the fact that it has never been fertilized. My horse lots join my yard. I fertilize them, and rotate the pastures when necessary. I vigorously control weeds in them. They never seem to produce grass like my yard does. I have often wished they would match my yard in production. I will say the horses usually crap in the barn, and I spread it on my cattle pasture. Horse manure doesn't seem to have the same amount of N as cow manure.

 

[inyati13]

That being what it is, Banjo, if you are taking a crop from the land then it is like an equation: to keep it in balance you have to put something back. Hauling your hay from the field every year is the same as going out there and loading minerals including elemental N, C, K, Ca, P, selenium, etc in a loader bucket and dumping it on your neighbors farm. Eventually, for those elements to be in good supply they have to be replaced. A plant makes its own food (carbohydrates) via photosynthesis, but to build cell walls, plastids, mitochondria and to carry on cell metabolism it must have elements. That is what fertilizer does but even fertilizer is very limited as most of what we get is only N-P-K. Limestone is much more diverse since it is ground limestone which will contain other elements in addition to Ca. But make no mistake, land wears out if there is no replacement of elements. I am trying to rebuild hay fields on my farm where the elements have been removed by crops and leaching. Remember, the bedrock is the ultimate source of elements but it takes geologic time to oxidize and weather to make those elements usable by the plant.[/quote]

What I was talking about was if a piece of ground has been mowed off for a couple of years and it is standing there looking great without anything, then IMO nothing is needed. I do realize you can't take and take forever without giving back. IMO cutting hay off of a hayfield two and three times a year is one the hardest things you can do to your soil. That's why I have quit cutting hay off of my own land. Exchanging chemical acid fertilize for organic matter( hay) is a poor trade IMO unless one wants to continually burn out what little organic matter there is left in most soils. The best way to build soil is thru high stock density planned grazing with long recovery periods. If I did cut hay off my own ground I would only cut it off once and rotational graze it the rest of the year or let it stockpile if you have fescue/orchardgrass for winter grazing.

I agree with you. I have bought 80% of my hay the last two years. This year I put 30 acres in hay and just took 72 rolls off of it. It was mostly orchard grass. The way I see it and this would be a great topic, you can either haul in your hay or you can haul in fertilizer and/or crushed stone. And here is the point that would make a great discussion, "Which one is more expensive?" I think I might be better off to buy my hay. Because what really kills me is that my neighbor rakes and rolls my hay for half so I have to watch part of my farm being hauled away.

 

[inyati13]

I'm not going to weigh in on the organic matter verses chemicle fertilizer thing. When I don't know what I'm talking about, I just don't talk. I have however marveled at my yards ability to stay green, and grow considering the fact that it has never been fertilized. My horse lots join my yard. I fertilize them, and rotate the pastures when necessary. I vigorously control weeds in them. They never seem to produce grass like my yard does. I have often wished they would match my yard in production. I will say the horses usually crap in the barn, and I spread it on my cattle pasture. Horse manure doesn't seem to have the same amount of N as cow manure.

How do you know the yard is actually producing more? Bigfoot, you have to do a study to really know what your production difference is. The horses are constantly clipping the pasture next to your yard. Difficult to just look and say which one is producing more pounds of forage. The traffic on the pasture is also a factor. Those horses are walking on it 12 hours a day.

One thing that Banjo raised above that is also a factor. The clipped grass is going into the yard and building up the humus. As the clipped grass is consumed by microbes the minerals are returned and the microbes grow and die and return their constituents. I have seen the same thing Banjo mentioned, if you take an idle worn out piece of land that has a poor stand of fescue with multiflora rose, blackberry briers, small locust, sumac, and other weeds and bushes; you rotary mow it 2 to 3 times a year which returns the mulch from the cuttings and eliminates the competion from undesirable vegetation; it will look like a hay field in two years. At least where you, Banjo and I live (in the Great Blue Grass Country). Yeeeeee Ha.

 

[tom4018]

UK's publication says for grass/legume hay you remove 35 pounds N, 12 P, and 53 K per acre for each ton off hay removed, pasture is 10, 4, 16.

Had a buggy mess up one time on me and missed a small section of ground, you could really tell a difference in the grass. Takes about the same amount of time to mow and rake poor hay compare to good thick hay, that has to be included in the costs.

 

[pdfangus]

My take on this is...... we need to be constantly evaluating how we do things....
I am old enough to recall when people farmed organicly becasue that was what they had....
I saw the birth of using chemical fertilizer....I was an early baby boomer and that is when fertilizer industry was born right after world war II...and it was born because it was cheap....I recall my daddy talking to our older neighbor about putting lime and fertilizer on his new crop....the half dozen milk cows and the mule didn't produce enough manure to do the whole field.....
fertilizer is no longer cheap....
it is projected that there is a fourty year supply on mineable phorphourous left in the world...china contols a lot of the minable potash...which way do you think prices are going?
we are running multispecies cover crop on farm trials, to try to evaluate the benefits of, and to learn how to manage using multispecies cover crops to build soil health.
changing management with an eye toward lower input costs and sustainability is among the goals.
the livestock producer is the producer with the most potential for sustainability but it is a careful balancing act even for them.
tools like intensive grazing managment, fallow seasons with just cover crops for biomass, controlling the recycling of manures, intensive legume production, mixed species forage stands, feeding hay back on hayland to return nutrients, monitoring soil health and organic matter are all tools that we should be learning how to use.
Of course getting farmers to change their habits normally only occurs after a long series of funerals.....
The biggest obstacle to learning is the preconceived notions we have resident in the human mind....too many can never abandon these resident notions. people in agriculture seem to be worse about this than any other industry.

 

[John SD]

I've never fertilized hay ground or pasture, and can't say I know anyone who does. "Here" in western SD our limiting factor is precip.

 

[Banjo]

I'm not going to weigh in on the organic matter verses chemicle fertilizer thing. When I don't know what I'm talking about, I just don't talk. I have however marveled at my yards ability to stay green, and grow considering the fact that it has never been fertilized. My horse lots join my yard. I fertilize them, and rotate the pastures when necessary. I vigorously control weeds in them. They never seem to produce grass like my yard does. I have often wished they would match my yard in production. I will say the horses usually crap in the barn, and I spread it on my cattle pasture. Horse manure doesn't seem to have the same amount of N as cow manure.

If you don't mow your yard too low then it doesn't have to regrow from the roots...its then all from photosynthesis. We have a few people around here that like to scalp it almost to the ground like a burr haircut. They can get by with that as long as it don't turn dry, but when it does its the first one to turn brown. same thing is most likely happening in your horse lot, horses in particular will graze too short. So it takes longer to regrow from the roots than it does from photosynthesis and also each time it draws from the roots it weakens the roots.

 

[hawkeye78]

I was told by an elder that the amount of roots is directly related to the amount of above ground growth. If its short you have no root structure. If you take half and leave half it will come back faster. So if you mow your yard really short it will take longer to regrow and it will also die off first when gets dry or even winter kill. Horses don't bite the grass off they pull it off so they are taking it off short or even pulling the roots out of the ground.

As far as fertilizing or not. If it hasn't had anything for a few years I would first take a soil test and see how much OM is there. Then I would take a spade and dig a foot by foot by foot of soil and put into a tub and count the number of earthworms in that cubic foot of soil the more you have the healthier your soil is and the less you will have to put on it. If you are going to hay it you need to feed the hay back on it to put nutrients back. It is also a good idea to not take hay off of the same field continuously. It works better if you can take hay off then stockpile for winter grazing and graze rotationally for the next 4 years then go back to hay it again. This way you will be putting urine, manure, and leftover grass back into the soil to feed the microbes. One easy way to feed the microbes is to thinly spread some dry molasses or some corn meal on the ground this will give the microbes food to turn into carbohydrates to live on. :mrgreen: :idea:

 

[herofan]

You better go ahead and spend the money cause you might make too much money if you don't.

That is my true concern, disguised as a hay question. I'm making so much money i don't know what to do with it! :lol2:

If I did cut hay off my own ground I would only cut it off once and rotational graze it the rest of the year or let it stockpile if you have fescue/orchardgrass for winter grazing.

We cut hay in spring and let the cows graze it during the winter. I suppose most would agree that doesn't take the place of fertilizing, correct?

I've never fertilized hay ground or pasture, and can't say I know anyone who does. "Here" in western SD our limiting factor is precip.

What kind of hay do you have, and how does not fertilizing work for you?

 

[JWBrahman]

TANSTAAFL There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Nitrogen is required to breakdown the organic material you putting into your pasture everytime you mow. While you are replacing your trace minerals and to a lesser extend the phosphorous if you burn debris, you are not replenishing adequate amounts of nitrogen just mowing. The best approach is integrated, a little mowing, a little spraying, and a little feritlizer. Oh yeah, hopefully a little rain, too. :nod:

 

[Rowdy]

My pastures have been pretty much over grazed for the last 30 years. Still test 9% protein. IF the nutrients have been diminishing since inception, what were the levels 30 years ago? 18%? lol

 

[ChrisB]

Around "here" it would be very hard to fertilize most pastures. If it can be driven over, it is more than likely corn or beans. I have never tested for nutrients either but I am curious what the results would be. But stocking rates have remained steady for the 20 years I've been running cows on it. Maybe all they are getting is "filler" but they stay in condition, calve and breed back so I'm not too worried about it.

 

[Banjo]

Banjo wrote:If I did cut hay off my own ground I would only cut it off once and rotational graze it the rest of the year or let it stockpile if you have fescue/orchardgrass for winter grazing.


We cut hay in spring and let the cows graze it during the winter. I suppose most would agree that doesn't take the place of fertilizing, correct?Most farmers who stockpile winter pasture however much it is...10,20, or 30 acres or whatever just turn the cows in on it the 1st of Jan. or whenever. But if you will stripgraze it a little each day you can make a few acres go along way. Fescue and orchardgrass will have twice the brix reading on a refractometer then than it does now.
You will also be concentrating the manure and urine instead of just here and there.

 

[John SD]

I've never fertilized hay ground or pasture, and can't say I know anyone who does. "Here" in western SD our limiting factor is precip.

What kind of hay do you have, and how does not fertilizing work for you?

All of my hay ground is dryland alfalfa mostly with some variation of western/crested/brome grass mix in it. I have no irrigation or creek bottoms.

It is an unusual year to get a second cutting on dryland hay fields. In an exceptionally good year, we might get to choose between some quality second cutting, or possibly harvesting some seed.

Guys with sub-irrigated creek bottoms, they might get a second, possibly third cutting most years, if the hoppers don't get it first.

It might be likely in a good year that some fertilizer might be a sound investement. In a bad year, it would probably be a waste of money.

I'm sorry I don't really have a good answer your question because I have never fertilized and don't personally know anyone locally who has. It's just not something that is done here.

 

[herofan]

I'm sorry I don't really have a good answer your question because I have never fertilized and don't personally know anyone locally who has. It's just not something that is done here.

No problem. Thanks for the reply. I always like getting the varied answers. As with anything, it appears there is no solid answer that always has to be. There are always those who do it technically by the book, and those who don't, yet neither is going under or experiencing great prosperity because of it.

 

[TexasBred]

Around "here" it would be very hard to fertilize most pastures. If it can be driven over, it is more than likely corn or beans. I have never tested for nutrients either but I am curious what the results would be. But stocking rates have remained steady for the 20 years I've been running cows on it. Maybe all they are getting is "filler" but they stay in condition, calve and breed back so I'm not too worried about it.

Note the original poster was referring to land that had been cut for hay for years. No cows grazing. Any grazing operation will always have some nutrients returned in the form of manure and urine so somewhat different situation. Cows can breed and raise calves on unfertilized pasture....they just have to work a lot harder at it and eat a lot more of the low quality forage.

 

[herofan]

Would some agree that if I never fertilize, this could be a possibility:

The standing hay could look good. I could cut and roll it, and cows would eat it as usual. The cows could look good throughout the winter, yet the hay could be low in nutrients, and things might not be as well as they appear?

 

[TexasBred]

Would some agree that if I never fertilize, this could be a possibility:

The standing hay could look good. I could cut and roll it, and cows would eat it as usual. The cows could look good throughout the winter, yet the hay could be low in nutrients, and things might not be as well as they appear?

It's possible. Some of the best looking hay I've seen had very little nutritional value. IF they can eat enough of it tho it will meet some of their needs. That's why many supplement when they know the hay is low in feed value. The best conditioned cows in the pasture are often the ones that have not bred.