Jim Gerrish's fescue-plus grazing and stockpile mix

[Mossy Dell]

I just finished Jim Gerrish's book Kick the Hay Habit. Very interesting. Basically he says to stock for winter grazing, not summer. Winter pasturing should set the size of your herd or flock.

The actual costs of hay are staggering, as he presents them. When I was doing MIG for 10 years in SE Ohio fescue country with a flock of sheep, I moved away from stockpiling. I liked it, but I was paid so well for lambs. I kept increasing the size of my flock, running three ewes per acre. That was a conservative year-round average there. It allowed for some winter grazing but much less than if I had run two per acre on average. Hay was a huge expense, however. And it was the labor of hay that was beginning to get to me as I got older and lazier.

Anyway, I found Gerrish's pasture mix he used in Missouri interesting—a mix of tall fescue, orchardgrass, smooth brome, and timothy. Now, he is Mr. Stockpile, so what was anything besides fescue doing in there? He likes diversity. And he said he found that if a pasture was at about 40% fescue, the fescue formed a protective canopy for the other grasses in winter.

He did not specify a seeding rate, so I sat down with seed charts and tried to come up with rates for that mix that would result in a pasture of about half tall fescue:

Fescue = 10 lbs [227,000 seeds/lb = x 10 = 2.27 million]
Brome = 5 lbs [135,000 seeds/lb = x 5 = 675,000]
Orchardgrass = 4 lbs [416,000/lb. x 4 = 1.6 million]
Timothy = .5 lb [1.15 million/lb x 1/2 = 500,000]

Check my math! And I have always seeded at high rates, so you could probably use less. Would be interested to hear if anyone has tried a mix like this. I am not familiar with smooth bromegrass, at least I never planted it.

Of course, what you manage for, on purpose or accidentally, is always what you end up with. Strategic abuse of our KY 31 tall fescue was the key to having bluegrass, timothy, and some orchardgrass too.

 

[Dave]

I don't know how many people realized it but we had Jim posting here for a while about 6 or 7 years ago. As with a lot of other really knowledgeable people he apparently decided there was better ways to spend his time.

 

[Mossy Dell]

Thanks, Dave. That's typical of what I have seen on other boards. Experts get disgusted, usually pretty quickly, by the ignorance and ego so often on display.

 

[Ebenezer]

I just finished Jim Gerrish's book Kick the Hay Habit. Very interesting. Basically he says to stock for winter grazing, not summer. Winter pasturing should set the size of your herd or flock.

The actual costs of hay are staggering, as he presents them. When I was doing MIG for 10 years in SE Ohio fescue country with a flock of sheep, I moved away from stockpiling. I liked it, but I was paid so well for lambs. I kept increasing the size of my flock, running three ewes per acre. That was a conservative year-round average there. It allowed for some winter grazing but much less than if I had run two per acre on average. Hay was a huge expense, however. And it was the labor of hay that was beginning to get to me as I got older and lazier.

Anyway, I found Gerrish's pasture mix he used in Missouri interesting—a mix of tall fescue, orchardgrass, smooth brome, and timothy. Now, he is Mr. Stockpile, so what was anything besides fescue doing in there? He likes diversity. And he said he found that if a pasture was at about 40% fescue, the fescue formed a protective canopy for the other grasses in winter.

He did not specify a seeding rate, so I sat down with seed charts and tried to come up with rates for that mix that would result in a pasture of about half tall fescue:

Fescue = 10 lbs [227,000 seeds/lb = x 10 = 2.27 million]
Brome = 5 lbs [135,000 seeds/lb = x 5 = 675,000]
Orchardgrass = 4 lbs [416,000/lb. x 4 = 1.6 million]
Timothy = .5 lb [1.15 million/lb x 1/2 = 500,000]

Check my math! And I have always seeded at high rates, so you could probably use less. Would be interested to hear if anyone has tried a mix like this. I am not familiar with smooth bromegrass, at least I never planted it.

Of course, what you manage for, on purpose or accidentally, is always what you end up with. Strategic abuse of our KY 31 tall fescue was the key to having bluegrass, timothy, and some orchardgrass too.

Seeding rate is lacking legumes for what I want. Rates look minimal but OK. Winter or summer: drought will set your limits. The inconsistent quality of hay is more of a problem than the costs around here. Some plants, like timothy, work as annuals here. You'll get diversity (mixed species) whether you plant them or not. It is a plus. And you're better off to select your diversity by planting than to get it merely by having pastures for years. Each region has micro-regions where particular forages will or will not work. No book or distant guru can tell you all that you need to know. Usefulness of forage species are tied to management, soil fertility, applications of lime and other products, stocking rates, soil health and expected animal performance or animal type. Want to learn: find the best grazier closest to you and most like you and see what he is doing. Forages mean nothing without specific management techniques.

 

[Mossy Dell]

I did not include legumes in the list of grasses. But I would probably use 2 lbs. of white clover/ladino and 4 or 5 of red to start and annually. Possibly also some lespedeza as drought insurance.

 

[kenny thomas]

A few of us here graze a lot of the winter. Some do much better than I. I see your in SW Virginia, your welcome to come look and let's talk about some of the successes and failures. One thing I have found is it seems that what's here naturally does better.

 

[kenny thomas]

I don't follow Jim Garrish but I think we can all learn some things from the things he does. It seem he has more available land than I can get here. Plus he grazed other peoples dry cows which I have not seen done here.

 

[Mossy Dell]

A few of us here graze a lot of the winter. Some do much better than I. I see your in SW Virginia, your welcome to come look and let's talk about some of the successes and failures. One thing I have found is it seems that what's here naturally does better.

Thanks, Kenny. I may give you a holler after this semester and come see what you are doing.

I agree, work with what is "native." I did that where I was grass farming in SE Ohio except in one case. I bought an abused 20-acre cornfield across the road and converted it to hay and future pasture. I used several top orchardgrasses, from Barenbrug as I recall, as well as Timothy and AU Dewey trefoil. Over several years of cutting it for hay by a custom harvestor, who cut too low for my taste, the fescue moved it and took over.

There had not been grass grown in that field in decades, just corn and beans. But it bordered a fescue field, and all its borders were fescue. If I had it to do over again, I would use a novel endophyte fescue like Martin 2 and maybe some Persist orchardgrass, which didn't exist then. Maybe a NZ var Tekapo orchardgrass would have lasted longer, who knows? But the base grass was going to end up fescue probably no matter what!

 

[Mossy Dell]

I don't follow Jim Garrish but I think we can all learn some things from the things he does. It seem he has more available land than I can get here. Plus he grazed other peoples dry cows which I have not seen done here.

Incidentally, I am around Radford, so not as far toward VA's tip as you. One thing that has struck me here is how many Angus are run in VA and all over these hills. And that they appear to be very moderate in size.

And the bulls I see look like frame 4-5. Maybe it's closer to 5 or 5 plus, as I am looking for a distance usually. But there's a compact Hereford and a compact Angus bull working the cows right now along a road I walk along, and those bulls are very moderate.

I wonder where these Virginians are getting moderate bulls. And I wonder if they went big like a lot did in the 1980s and their cows crashed on these hills. The pastures around here are grazed but not intensively managed for it, and there's a lot of broom sedge.

 

[kenny thomas]

I see the shorter frame cattle more in your part of VA than mine. Mine is more large frame than some. I will not buy a bull less than 6.5 frame but like 6.8 even better.
My farms are very steep so the seeding his an issue.