Soil Health and Fertility

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Their hooves break up the roots.
LOL - Milk as a benefit????? That's a stretch. Saliva on the grass - someone had waaayyy toooo much time on their hand to research that.
Quick Google search


Milk was used pre 1900s it would appear.

Cow Spit

Lots of info on both on the ol interweb.
 
Quick Google search


Milk was used pre 1900s it would appear.

Cow Spit

Lots of info on both on the ol interweb.
I want to say when the dairies were dumping a lot of milk in the 90's farmers started buying it as a type of soil amendment-added calcium, etc...
 
I'm not sure I want my cows milking so much that there is enough hitting the ground to make a significant change in my pastures.
 
I'm not sure I want my cows milking so much that there is enough hitting the ground to make a significant change in my pastures.
BINGO - my point being is unless you are a dairy farm with excess milk to get rid of - what good is that information??? And it is not research - I believe it's observation. I am NOT saying it isn't good fertilizer. It is probably super great - just not something that a beef producer will/should benefit from. If you are referring to the little white bubbles on the ground after a calf nurses, than I guess I would have to be pretty desperate for fertilizer.
 
Mob grazing mimics the vast herds of buffalo that once roamed the prairies, like a giant lawn mower they moved through an area eating as much as possible and trampling the rest. The manure was trampled in and with it grass seeds, firmly planted at a shallow depth with fertilizer incorporated just waiting for the next rain to start germination.
 
Mob grazing mimics the vast herds of buffalo that once roamed the prairies, like a giant lawn mower they moved through an area eating as much as possible and trampling the rest. The manure was trampled in and with it grass seeds, firmly planted at a shallow depth with fertilizer incorporated just waiting for the next rain to start germination.
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word...
 
Their hooves break up the roots.
LOL - Milk as a benefit????? That's a stretch. Saliva on the grass - someone had waaayyy toooo much time on their hand to research that.
Milk is an excellent fertilizer/ foliar feed, works at rates as low as three gallon per acre. Can't let it stand in the sprayer though.
 
I have two sections of pasture. Each section is about 50 acres, both have woods on them making them about 40 acres of pasture. I let my neighbor hay the place for a few years before I came home. I did not appreciate the harm that caused until I got back. Live and learn. The first thing I did since coming here was to lime everything bringing the pH to about 6 to 6.5.

I was covered up in broom sedge.

After getting the pH right I started putting 200 pounds of triple 19 on the north side each spring. I mow it once a year after the fescue has produced mature seed. The broom sedge is all gone and the fescue has crowded out all the weeds. That grass is beautiful. I have about 10% white clover and Bermuda there too.

I was experimenting.

I did not put out fertilizer on the south side. I did lime it and mow it like I did the fertilized north side. I feed hay on the unfertilized south side. I have one spot at the top of a hill where I feed every day during hay feeding season. I drill pearl millet there every spring. The cows love the millet. I get 4 or five grazes on it.

I drilled red clover and vetch on the south side about a month ago. It is up pretty good. I have a robust amount of recurring white clover on both sides. I am probably wasting time and money drilling because it is hard to keep cows off it during the winter. I have a 10 acre spot I will not let them on this winter if I can help it.

Yesterday I put 75 tons of chicken litter on the south side. I expect rain tonight.

It has not been a miracle turn around, but overall I am happy with the improvements in soil health and fertility.
Next step is to test the nutritional value of your forage
 
Next step is to test the nutritional value of your forage
Probably good advice, but I would not act regardless of what the test results were.

This is my 6th winter feeding my own Bermuda. The cows hold up fine.

This is the first year to bring in hay, and what I brought in is even better than my own hay. My own hay got set back by hungry army worms. I had an unprecedented three invasions this year.
 
Probably good advice, but I would not act regardless of what the test results were.

This is my 6th winter feeding my own Bermuda. The cows hold up fine.

This is the first year to bring in hay, and what I brought in is even better than my own hay. My own hay got set back by hungry army worms. I had an unprecedented three invasions this year.
I have bought hay for the last 3 years. different suppliers. I also bale as much hay as I can. My cows will leave others hay to go to mine. I have baled weeds rough stuff, everything trying to get a quarter cleaned up. They eat most all of it. I bale it as soon after cutting as I can. If it has green weeds only better. My cows will eat anything I bale. My new Vermeer 504R tells me everything I bale is either 29% moisture or WET...
 
I got a litter private applicator permit 2 years ago. I am in central OK. I spread 25 tons on my home place and 75 tons on another. the 25 tons went on 36 acres. The other went on about 100 acres. In both places the litter sat and was rained on for 6 weeks waiting on litter tests and then the weather.. I could not make heads or tails of the report that the NRCS had to fill out. I also did not have time to travel 3 hours across the state for a 2 day training that tells me **** runs downhill. Now the Ag department wants to take me to court because I did not report the 125 tons of litter that went on land that is 100 miles from any high phosphorous area.....
 
HD, last year was the first time I looked at the Texas A&M info on the nutritional value of Gulf Coast grasses. Rye grass and clovers typically have twice, TWICE the protein of Bermuda.

We also have variability in the nutritional value between silage cut on hilltops versus the stuff we get out of marginal land that is swampy.

We feed a lot of bulls. You can easily tell the difference when they have better forage.
 

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