Rejuvenating pastures / reseeding

Green farmer

I have old hay meadows / grazing pasture's in a sheep only, level ground, lowland farm. The land hasn't been reseeded in about 30 years plus years. I'm hoping to get it reseeded, but could take me years as could only afford to do a few acres at a time. I have my own tractor with land leveller and a wagtail spreader and access to a roller. Was thinking about buying a reasonably priced chain harrow and doing some overseeding after silage cutting or when swards are grazed down low by the sheep. Can get a contractor in to spray off selected weeds as needs be. I've no access to slurry, so cannt formulate it into the process.
Any lads do this type of stuff, or am I better off letting a contractor going full ploughing / power harrowing on it instead ?

Deepsouthwest

Green farmer wrote: »

I have old hay meadows / grazing pasture's in a sheep only, level ground, lowland farm. The land hasn't been reseeded in about 30 years plus years. I'm hoping to get it reseeded, but could take me years as could only afford to do a few acres at a time. I have my own tractor with land leveller and a wagtail spreader and access to a roller. Was thinking about buying a reasonably priced chain harrow and doing some overseeding after silage cutting or when swards are grazed down low by the sheep. Can get a contractor in to spray off selected weeds as needs be. I've no access to slurry, so cannt formulate it into the process.
Any lads do this type of stuff, or am I better off letting a contractor going full ploughing / power harrowing on it instead ?

I'd spray it off, and come in with a one pass if it was mine. Definitely the cheapest option. If it's dry ground then ploughing will be of no advantage.

Username John

Hi Green,

Do you have access to FYM? Could you incorporate this as part of a reseed?

Are there any piggeries near you, to get some pig slurry?

I dunno about over-seeding.
Never tried, just my opinion - but the two biggest costs are seed and fertiliser, which you would be spending in over-seeding, or a full reseed. I think for the sake of a few more quid, you'd have a much better sward, if you did a full reseed.

How about the following:
Could you get the contractor to spray a few acres for you
Leave it for 10 days / 2 weeks
Get the ewes to eat it down to the ground
Lime
Get some kinda harrow, chain, or otherwise - to redden the ground. I know lads say a chain harrows are good (one here) But we have an old triple K harrow at home, and it reddens the ground good enough for the seed to take.
Put out fertiliser & seed
Roll

Could you put out some FYM after the ewes eat it down, and then kinda harrow this in a bit as well?

I dunno what the costs would be
- contractor for spraying - don't have a cost here - anyone?
- Spray - Gallop is around $35, so ~17/acre
- Lime - 2 ton acre = ~44/acre
- Seed ~75/acre
- Fertiliser ~75/acre

Even at that, you're prob around 220-250/acre? Well worth it tho, when you see it growing compared to old grass...

If you were planning to do a bit of reseeding every year, would you look at buying a sprayer? It might be good to have to do a post emergence spray as well.
I think it was Pudsey who said every farmer should have one, as it was one piece of machinery that when used properly could increase grass by a large % (by reducing weeds)

Not sure that post answered any of your original questions

Count Mondego

I tried min-till for a number of years but always had mixed results, depending on soil type, weather conditions etc. Now I find spray, plough, harrow and seed with a good whop of P + K guarantees results every time, and you know that it will all be done in a week.

Username John

Count Mondego wrote: »

I tried min-till for a number of years but always had mixed results, depending on soil type, weather conditions etc. Now I find spray, plough, harrow and seed with a good whop of P + K guarantees results every time, and you know that it will all be done in a week.

Hi Count,
When you say you tried min-til - what did you do?

I wont be doing it for a while, but I have one or two fields that I wouldn't be able to plough, so interested to know what worked and what didn't for lads.

Count Mondego

Username John wrote: »

Hi Count,
When you say you tried min-til - what did you do?

I wont be doing it for a while, but I have one or two fields that I wouldn't be able to plough, so interested to know what worked and what didn't for lads.

John,

I'd burn off the field and then about 3 weeks later a contractor would come in and disk harrow with a big yoke. After 5 - 7 days he'd do it again. Then I'd disk it myself with a smaller one trying to break up the sods of turf that covered the ground. Could run it and the harrow ten times on it to break them down. Found it very hard to get a good seedbed and burn gallons of diesel. I know I'm fussy and I see other lads give it two runs of the harrow and fire the seed on top of the clods, but I think it's a bad job. A powerharrow would be a great job to break it up but if it hits a stone (plenty of that here) the whole thing jumps up.

MickeyShtyles

Count Mondego wrote: »

John,

I'd burn off the field and then about 3 weeks later a contractor would come in and disk harrow with a big yoke. After 5 - 7 days he'd do it again. Then I'd disk it myself with a smaller one trying to break up the sods of turf that covered the ground. Could run it and the harrow ten times on it to break them down. Found it very hard to get a good seedbed and burn gallons of diesel. I know I'm fussy and I see other lads give it two runs of the harrow and fire the seed on top of the clods, but I think it's a bad job. A powerharrow would be a great job to break it up but if it hits a stone (plenty of that here) the whole thing jumps up.

A stale seedbed is the only way forward with the likes of this.

CloughCasey1

Count Mondego wrote: »

John,

I'd burn off the field and then about 3 weeks later a contractor would come in and disk harrow with a big yoke. After 5 - 7 days he'd do it again. Then I'd disk it myself with a smaller one trying to break up the sods of turf that covered the ground. Could run it and the harrow ten times on it to break them down. Found it very hard to get a good seedbed and burn gallons of diesel. I know I'm fussy and I see other lads give it two runs of the harrow and fire the seed on top of the clods, but I think it's a bad job. A powerharrow would be a great job to break it up but if it hits a stone (plenty of that here) the whole thing jumps up.

I saw a lad last year do the following. Two runs disc harrow by contractor. Two runs spring harrow, one run rotavator and believe it or not the haybob to burst up the scraws/sods that were left, seed fertiliser and roll.

Markcheese

Soil testing first- if you can get farm yard manure out, do. Graze bare and chain harrow a few times - seed out and roll the ground - then all you need is a good damp week - keep it grazed to give new seedlings a bit of space - and your away -
The fertilizer and lime are needed anyway, so it's the diesel and grass seed are the extras - try match the grass mix to your ground / farming style too
( dry ground / early grazing ect)

Farmer Pudsey

First off if there is a lot of weeds p-resent especially docks, thistles dandeloins etc I spray. I wouls also get my PH and fertility right. You will be amazed how much this improves pastures at the cost of 20-30 euro acre.

Stitching or virtual non till methods are very risky with old pasture. If I was reseeding I would spray off old grass. If you can get a lad with an Lemiken independent spring loaded disc harrow I go with that. Biggest mistake lads make when reseeing especially old pasture is not using granlime to break down old scraw and correct ph to right level at time of reseeding.

I have reseeding a bit of my own farm and for old pasture I found that the Lemiken dic harrow along was the most cost effective. Two runs cost about 30/acre ( make sure he slightly off sets the second run to break up the scraws) . A run of the chain harrow spread the seed, granlime, Fertlizer ( 2-3K of slurry disced in along with a bag of 10.10.20.) and the 3 R's roll, roll and roll again.

If it was land that was reseeded before (in the last 10-15 years) and Ph and fertility was kept right stitching is excellent as long as you use slug pellets and granlime again. Bob Charles was a big fan of this and had a stitching machine.

Green farmer

Thank you lads, plenty to think about there. I might just arrange for spraying off all non grass species (weeds) and fix the ph in the near future, while figuring out what the best way to go after that. I suppose the biggest worry is to do it properly, as my field is at present, very smooth. I've seen reseeding done where the fields are in some instances not as level afterwards, mainly because a contractor being overly busy. Id hate to have a bumpy field afterward.

Greengrass1

Count Mondego wrote: »

John,

I'd burn off the field and then about 3 weeks later a contractor would come in and disk harrow with a big yoke. After 5 - 7 days he'd do it again. Then I'd disk it myself with a smaller one trying to break up the sods of turf that covered the ground. Could run it and the harrow ten times on it to break them down. Found it very hard to get a good seedbed and burn gallons of diesel. I know I'm fussy and I see other lads give it two runs of the harrow and fire the seed on top of the clods, but I think it's a bad job. A powerharrow would be a great job to break it up but if it hits a stone (plenty of that here) the whole thing jumps up.

You are probably after making a pan I reckon. About an inch or so down. 2 runs of a disc is plenty. It won't look like a ploughed and power harrow ed piece but it doesn't need to be.
sowed 25 ac like this last yr as it took very well. Last 8 ac got a dry rime in September and was not right until a month ago. Grazing it every 10-14 days atm.

I have stitched in 8 ac of grass 24 days ago. Cows ate it down very well. Sprayed off and sown 10 days later. Got rain for s good 5/6 days and was up on day ten.
Will be grazing this in 2 wks I reckon with thus springs calves

It got 2 bags of phisolith and 4 bags of 10 10 20.
contractor was 70/ac he went in 2 directors with the drill. Very happy with it and will use it in another few wks as soon as this ground is in production

just do it

GG
What you think of the phisolith? Had you soil tested before hand?

just do it

OP
I've used min till here with great success. I'll post full routine later

Greengrass1

just do it wrote: »

GG
What you think of the phisolith? Had you soil tested before hand?

Great stuff I reckon.
Out farm got a bag of that aswell as 2t lime. I only had enough phisolith fir headlands in last field and the headlands are hoping grass.

At home here grass is still lush green when it's grazed and vert even graze out and when it's ready to be grazed cows graze cow pats hsppily .
Completely different type grass in comparison to my dairy neighbour.
i could be biased though.
Ye ph was 6.4 in reseed but I'd still put out 2 bags when reseeding

just do it

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Great stuff I reckon.
Out farm got a bag of that aswell as 2t lime. I only had enough phisolith fir headlands in last field and the headlands are hoping grass.

At home here grass is still lush green when it's grazed and vert even graze out and when it's ready to be grazed cows graze cow pats hsppily .
Completely different type grass in comparison to my dairy neighbour.
i could be biased though.
Ye ph was 6.4 in reseed but I'd still put out 2 bags when reseeding

Might try some of it at time of reseed and blanket cover the farm in the autumn. But of course must soil test first though!

Farmer Pudsey

just do it wrote: »

Might try some of it at time of reseed and blanket cover the farm in the autumn. But of course must soil test first though!

If you are using bag lime use it in the spring not at end of year. It is designed to work over the growing season.

just do it

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If you are using bag lime use it in the spring not at end of year. It is designed to work over the growing season.

Blanket cover will be ground lime