Spraying vs Mowing Pastures

[Brute 23]

Maybe it is a regional thing?

... or a mental thing. People like to equate the equipment used in farming to range land and its actually quite the opposite.

Its like managing a high fence vs low fence deer herd.

 

[kenny thomas]

Maybe it is a regional thing?

I know people who have used them extensively and are very happy.
Maybe the schools used them on the campus farm that has had everything done to it for years.
Like clinchvalley86 said I can tell a big difference since I started rotating the cattle.

 

[simme]

I am skeptical of the pasture aerators. The good turf aerators remove a small core of soil. That makes sense that it would allow water penetration and loosen the soil. But the pasture aerators use heavy equipment to drive pointed spikes or blades into the soil, using weights to force them in. And they don't go very deep. Seems like they are as likely to pack the soil as to loosen it. Deep tillage shanks will break up a hardpan, but how much hp and fuel is needed for that?

 

[Lucky]

Always been curious about aerating pastures.

As everyone knows, it is pushed heavily in yard maintenance.

Does it really give good results in a pasture?

I had read some test done by I believe the University of Tennessee, and it showed no impact of aerating on hayfields, didn't know if it carried over to pastures as well.

Edit: I found the link to what I had read about it: https://grazer.mgcafe.uky.edu/aerating-pastures-it-worth-it

I've got this type of aerator and it's works well to break up the compaction. I feel like it cuts the root structure of grass and makes it spread also. Takes 100hp tractor to pull it though. It's not the miracle pasture cure but definitely helps. I know folks who run the tine type aerator and they say they don't do much. The type I have definitely helps with water absorption and the test on that are pretty cool.

Ours has a seed bag on top and a place for a Herd type seeder also.

 

[Lucky]

... or a mental thing. People like to equate the equipment used in farming to range land and its actually quite the opposite.

Its like managing a high fence vs low fence deer herd.

How about all the Mesquite in South Texas? How do you manage that stuff without some type of equipment? We spent 1,000 hrs on the dozer trying to reclaim land taken over by Honey Locust. The Mesquite and Huistach has to be harder to manage.

 

[crossbreed]

Curios as to how many

I mow - to control weeds but also to get grass to regrow. I rotationally graze and run the mower following each move. Each field (7 acres) get's mowed twice a year. With spring rush, especially, if you don't mow, the grass will over ripen and not rebound when the cattle come back around. Spraying and burning won't resolve that issue. More cattle wouldn't either - or I would be feeding hay in the summer and more hay (no stockpile) in the fall/winter. Will I eventually have to spray? Maybe. Every so often I get a surge of canada thistle or pigweed or, today it's horsenettle. I always think mowing won't resolve it, but it seems to after a couple years. Besides.... me and burning? What could go wrong??? :)

Head you run on the paddocks and how often you move them. I'm running 25 pairs, 7 heifers and the bull on approximately 10 acre paddocks and moving on 10 days. I was mowing and dragging turd buster behind the move but have a weed wiper almost ready so plan to run that on my sxs instead of mower to kill out bull nettle and thistle. We shall see

 

[Brute 23]

How about all the Mesquite in South Texas? How do you manage that stuff without some type of equipment? We spent 1,000 hrs on the dozer trying to reclaim land taken over by Honey Locust. The Mesquite and Huistach has to be harder to manage.

There are two processes to separate, imo, which are restoring vs maintaining.

When restoring grasslands equipment and herb are useful to tilt the scales and get faster results. If its a Heavy stand of mesquite it might need a bulldozer or mulcher or equipment to remove. Medium, you might get away with ipt and/or burning.
Light- you can absolutely burn and use ipt.
With all of them you can sculp the landscape and leave beneficial trees.

Fire does very little to huistache of any size unless they are tiny. You have to use ipt on it.
It is mixed on mesquite but is really good at sculpting it because of that. It can definitely help with precent expansion.
Cedar, honey locust, juniper all respond really good to fire and their expansion on the land is 100% due to removing fire.

I don't mind putting equiment on the ground to clear and reclaim, like the drum mulcher we just usedd to take out understory. We also glyphosate areas to replant as part of restoring it. As any example, we sprayed two little fields that were dominated by KR Bluestem with glyphosate.

Basically, Im all about prescribed, intensional use of a herb or equipment to achieve a specific goal. Even like saying, I have to spray and keep this hay field clean for hay for my operation. Thats not the end of the world, far from it.

Using a shredder or some herb here and there to manage areas when the grazing plan didnt go quite as you thought, not the end of the world.

When you see hundreds of acres cleared, bermudas put in, and they are out there spraying herb and fertilizer non-stop, potentionally irrigaying with ground water, and it ends up a monoculture of turf, it does have consequences for all of us. Now, its a toss up between that and a solid stand of like cedars on which is worse.

Imo, if most land owners would just say im going to leave an acre or what ever they could spare in a some what unproductive area, keep the woody plants out with ipt or burning, let the weeds and native grasses go, etc... I honestly believe it would have a drastic positive effect. I would even be for incilentivising those acres.

The main thing is be intensional with your applications. Slinging herb because its what we are told good cattle people do is not a good plan. Ive been there and was guilty of it too. Spraying and shredding regularly is not a plan I will go back too, especially with these input costs. There were times it looked amazing. There were times I didnt get hardly any results and it just burned a bunch of plants and wasted money. Same with fert. Both are too expensive now to gamble that.

Plus, Id rather depend on mother nature to effect my costs to operate than what the govt is doing at any point.

 

[Brute 23]

I guarantee most people on here are doing a good/better job than most. People don't get on these sites if they dont care about what they are doing.

 

[1982vett]

I am skeptical of the pasture aerators. The good turf aerators remove a small core of soil. That makes sense that it would allow water penetration and loosen the soil. But the pasture aerators use heavy equipment to drive pointed spikes or blades into the soil, using weights to force them in. And they don't go very deep. Seems like they are as likely to pack the soil as to loosen it. Deep tillage shanks will break up a hardpan, but how much hp and fuel is needed for that?

I used a shank renovator back in the day when diesel was $1.50 - 2.00. Stopped that nonsence when it hit $4+. In this blackland prarie, mother nature does a way better job. 4 weeks without rain in July the ground starts to crack. By 3 months those cracks can be 2 inches wide and 4-5 foot deep.

 

[angus9259]

How short do you generally mow?

6" or so. Mostly to knock the seed heads off. As anyone knows who has more pasture then cattle, the cattle will selectively choose the regrowth and leave stands of grass. Mowing really rejuvenates the grass as much as it keeps weeds at bay - which, of course it does that as well. The horsenettle could be tricky. It seems it will bear fruit at quite a low height. Will be interesting to see how mowing deals with that.

 

[angus9259]

Curios as to how many

Head you run on the paddocks and how often you move them. I'm running 25 pairs, 7 heifers and the bull on approximately 10 acre paddocks and moving on 10 days. I was mowing and dragging turd buster behind the move but have a weed wiper almost ready so plan to run that on my sxs instead of mower to kill out bull nettle and thistle. We shall see

I'm about identical to you. Bull thistle is easy to take out with mowing, though I do spot spray that when I see them as one offs in the field. Nettle will be more of a chore I'm afraid. But, I've seen it takes a couple years of mowing to keep other weeds in line, so I'll be patient.

 

[angus9259]

It's hard to mow pastures of "perfectly good grass" when you never know when the next drought will hit, but I've learned over the years that, in general, more mowing = more grass as much as it feels weird to mow it down grass they should be eating. When I first started, the MSU ag extension agent told me that the most important tool for a cattle owner to improve their profitability was a brush hog. I ain't proved him wrong yet.

I time rotating cattle out with rain as well. I realize rain will trigger regrowth and move the cattle away from the stands they've yet to eat. I know many people don't have the luxury of rain. Also - I'm sure the ag agents advise did not apply to people with thousands of acres of range land

 

[Dave]

I have a lot more and better grass here since the fire. The issue here is having a "controlled burn." You need a fire break around the area you plan to burn. A lot of this country is just too steep to put in those fire breaks. Another issue is by the time the state allows those fires it is well into the fall. Getting the area to burn is an issue. The biggest issue is what happened to the Hammonds south of Burns. Their controlled burn jumped the property line and burned a few acres of BLM land. Only about 40 acres in thousands of acres of sage brush. They ended up in prison over this. There is too much BLM land around here for anyone to feel comfortable burning.

 

[Tailwinds Land & Cattle]

How about all the Mesquite in South Texas? How do you manage that stuff without some type of equipment? We spent 1,000 hrs on the dozer trying to reclaim land taken over by Honey Locust. The Mesquite and Huistach has to be harder to manage.

We have managed to reclaim about 20% of the ranch with root plowing, discing and planting grass. Native grasses in some areas and monocultural grasses in protected areas reserved for grazing. Every few years we will burn the monocultural grasses to get rid of any regrowth mesquites and brush. Fire doesn't work too well in our native grass areas because it doesn't grow thick enough to create the proper heat when lit. My wildlife biologist buddies cringe at the idea of us planting monocultural grasses but we have had nothing but positive results. In fact, we learned this process of; clearing, planting monocultural grasses, letting it grow thick, then burning it to kill mesquite/brush from the King Ranch decades ago but they no longer advocate this process due to loss of biodiversity. I get it, but, for whatever reason, our quail and turkey populations exploded after planting buffel grass in certain areas. I am not sure why but I suspect it gives them very well protected nesting areas.

 

[RDFF]

It's hard to mow pastures of "perfectly good grass" when you never know when the next drought will hit, but I've learned over the years that, in general, more mowing = more grass as much as it feels weird to mow it down grass they should be eating. When I first started, the MSU ag extension agent told me that the most important tool for a cattle owner to improve their profitability was a brush hog. I ain't proved him wrong yet.

I time rotating cattle out with rain as well. I realize rain will trigger regrowth and move the cattle away from the stands they've yet to eat. I know many people don't have the luxury of rain. Also - I'm sure the ag agents advise did not apply to people with thousands of acres of range land

@angus9259, can you put your location in your profile?

 

[Brute 23]

We have managed to reclaim about 20% of the ranch with root plowing, discing and planting grass. Native grasses in some areas and monocultural grasses in protected areas reserved for grazing. Every few years we will burn the monocultural grasses to get rid of any regrowth mesquites and brush. Fire doesn't work too well in our native grass areas because it just doesn't get hot enough. My wildlife biologist buddies cringe at the idea of us planting monocultural grasses but we have had nothing but positive results. In fact, we learned this process of; clearing, planting monocultural grasses, let the grass grow thick, then burning it from the King Ranch decades ago but they no longer advocate the planting of those grasses due to loss of biodiversity. I get it, but, for whatever reason, our quail and turkey populations exploded after planting buffel grass in certain areas. I am not sure why but I suspect it gives them a very well protected nesting areas.

View attachment 68862

They nest in buffel grass and likely travel to adjacent native or more pressured ares to feed. Cow trails and disk strips take buffel to the next level for birds when the dove weed comes up. You have enough diversity on the property as a whole that it is complementing the system. Ive seen big pastures of buffel and the birds will be near edges and pressure areas but not way out in the thick middle.

We love buffel for birds when manged.

 

[Brute 23]

Some thing that I don't think has been mentioned here that tailwinds post reminded me is.. your type of grass should have a big influence of your method. Shredding tall grasses is not going to go well as opposed to more turf type grasses.
Same with your herb. If you have seed depended grasses like say Klein, and you go in with herb that has a lot of residual, it will probably effect you stand lond term.

Thats where being intensional comes in. The herb for Bermuda may be different than for Klein. Shredding may work on some and not others. Native tall grasses need fire.

 

[Shank3r]

My observations are strictly to our small property in Kleberg County, but when it comes to shredding, I’m not sure how effective it really is. I’ve used the shredder to top areas that had significant weed coverage and the grass (common Bermuda) under it thickened up a tad after rainfall; but going into the fall 3 small pastures were shredded entirely (most all mesquite & huisache had been knocked back using sendero spraying IPT); then we had 5 months of zero rainfall and applied fertilizer before it finally rained. Those three traps look pretty amazing with grass taller than the fences.

Im convinced that soil nutrition & soil health (compaction management & microbial levels) are the only thing that provides genuine results.

Huisache can’t hardly push up thru thick grass & weeds / brush doesn’t seem to explode where the soil is in good shape. It does where the ground is bare and so compacted a shovel won’t break the surface.

But back to shredding, keeping areas mowed & tidy do wonders for morale and mood. It feels good to have visually appealing roads, no tall grasses around barns, sheds, equipment; and makes for good motivation. So therefore I like running the shredder for that reason. I’m also the guy that likes trimming trees for the same reason.

 

[ClinchValley86]

@rdf

As ya can see, I do have some weeds too. Pic looking across the way. Closest to pic was grazed 24 hours prior. Second bit, next to line fence was grazed 5 or 6 days ago. Ground across the fence is continuously grazed.

2nd pic is the part grazed 10 days ago ish.

 

[RDFF]

The more I do this, it seems to me, "The more I leave behind 'em, the more I have in front of 'em"...

It's a hard thing to come to though... has taken me YEARS to really see and understand what that means, and I'm STILL learning it. And I just can't see the "good" in being able to "move them virtually from anywhere" (remotely)... I'm out in the pasture (and WANT to be out in the pasture) 2x/day most of the time just to observe how things are doing, etc., and I'm moving them 1x/day, most of the time. 2 days ago, I was giving the one herd 400' of a 220' wide strip to get the "right" amount of impact.......... yesterday and today I only gave them 100' of the same strip, for the same reason (thistle patches that I want them to graze down harder). Tomorrow I think I'll be back up to 300-400' again. And then on another group, I'm trying to figure out where I'll go with them next... have about 3 options, but they really should be moving out to one of them today... either about a half mile or 1 1/2 miles down the road (probably a haul situation), and I have to be making hay today, and cutting hay tomorrow, so THAT's probably not going to happen, so now I have to figure out the best way to handle them on the farm they're on, and still keep the right amount of remaining grass behind 'em... will I let them back out at low density to "backgraze" on some that's had like 2-3 weeks rest? Or do I put them on another of the ungrazed strips for a couple of days that I'm actually saving for another group that will need it in about 2 weeks?

I'm obviously not looking for answers to these questions from y'all... I'm just making the point that these decisions have to realistically be made "on the fly", based on "what you're seeing"......... there's NO WAY to make them "by prescription". This CT forum is composed of a great group of grazing guys who actually know what they're doing... so y'all know this stuff well. My concern about the "convenience of virtual" is for those who are still early in the learning stages of the art of "good grazing"... technology can't replace good management... and that only comes with experience. Alot of "beginners" in the field gravitate toward that technology piece because "its cool", before they're really ready to apply the good management skills that have to come along with it.

And all I have to do is look back at myself to understand that, even though I knew cattle and grazing for pretty much all my life................. I DIDN'T know grazing "this way"... it was always "set stock" when I grew up. When I bought this farm, I was already convinced that "rotational grazing" was the right way to do it... but I was in a mentality that was telling me I needed "X number of paddocks" which would allow me to maintain an "X number of days rotation", and I assumed that I should always keep that grass in a "vegetative state" and never let it go to seed... for "optimum nutrient content". And I assumed that I could support "X number of animals" on that farm, that way........... and if I couldn't, all I needed to do would be to add enough fertilizer to produce that much required forage (never even considered that I might also need to be bringing man-supplied water to the "prescription" to "hit my expectations" :rolleyes:.

Now, NOTHING is done here by prescription like that. It's ALL done by observation, every day, and I pro-actively and re-actively make changes according to what I see, feel, hear, and even smell... every day. Moving cattle "remotely" doesn't fit well into that scenario.