A New Year’s Resolution: Improved Pasture Management

 

     If you are like everyone else, you are setting goals and priorities for the new year. Focusing some of your yearly priorities on improved pasture management could potentially have a positive impact on your horse(s), the productivity of your pastures and your pocketbook.

     Improving pastures has many benefits, including improving overall forage quality, preventing water runoff issues, ensuring higher quality footing for horses, providing much of the equine nutritional requirements in a more natural form and potentially reducing supplemental feed costs long term.

     In the current climate, stored feeds, both grain and hay, are becoming significantly more expensive. Lime, fertilizer and herbicide prices are also on the rise; however, by planning ahead with a year long, but seasonal approach, on how to improve pastures makes it a bit more  achievable.

Winter

     The primary goal of winter pasture management is to minimize hoof traffic damage on winter pastures. This usually means removing horses from pastures or limiting access to pastures during the winter months, especially during extremely wet weather. This often requires the use of a dry lot or sacrifice area to put horses with supplemental forage, in the form of hay, to prevent horses from tearing up valuable pasture land when the weather is less than ideal.

     Frost seeding pre-inoculated clover seed can improve pasture quality and production. Broadcast a couple pounds per acre of beneficial clover seeds roughly four to eight weeks before the last hard frost into pastures that have been heavily grazed or mowed short. As the ground freezes and thaws, it will expand and contract, working the seed into the soil.  The seeds will then hopefully germinate in early spring.

Spring

     Pastures dominated by cool-season grasses will be highly productive during the spring time. Many farms produce more forage in the spring than their horses can keep up with. In these cases, mow or cut and bale excess forage for hay production.

     Seeding cool season grasses in the spring is a bit volatile and not the most ideal time to do so. However, spring and early summer are the best times to seed warm season grasses, such as bermudagrass and/or crabgrass. Planting success is based on proper preparation, including weed control and addressing fertility issues. Late spring/early summer is also an ideal time to scout pastures for undesirable weed species. Contact your local Cooperative Extension office for help with this.

Summer

     Summer is about managing warm season grasses and not overgrazing cool season grass pastures.  This is the time of highest production for warm season grasses. Horse farms in the south will be grazing warm season pastures heavily and making hay of any excess forage. Bermudagrass pastures are very responsive to nitrogen applications, especially if you want to maximize yields. This is also an ideal time to get a handle on warm season weeds, which again might require a field visit from your Ag Agent to identify the predominant weed species and a suitable herbicide protocol to eradicate them. They can also help you determine timing and suitable application rates of nitrogen and any other necessary fertilizers.

Fall

     Fall is the ideal timeframe to establish and maintain cool season grasses. Overseeding annuals and perennials into thin cool season stands will ultimately increase pasture productivity. Grasses are best established with a no-till drill. Seeding rates will vary with species and mixture. Fall is also an ideal time to fertilize your cool season pastures and treat for any late fall/winter weeds. Your local Ag Agent can assist you with seed varieties, seed mixes and suitable seeding rates for your area.

     In addition, fall is an ideal time to stockpile cool season grasses. Stockpiling refers to fencing animals out of specific cool season paddocks in late summer or early fall and allowing the forage to accumulate for grazing in the early to late winter months; therefore, potentially reducing the need to feed supplemental hay. Harvesting, baling, transporting and storing hay is an expensive process. By stockpiling forages one can then allow the horse to do the harvesting for you without the added expenses.