Rotational grazing

ganmo · 28-05-2017 07:28PM

Did it work this time?

Green farmer · 28-05-2017 07:52PM

rangler1 wrote: »

+1
Ryegrasses need nitrogen or they won't last, their advantage is that they grow faster than the meadowgrasses with nitrogen and compete because of that, but if you reduce the nitrogen the lesser grasses will take over

After reseeding, how many bags of 18 6 12 would you recommend a year, for grazing paddocks. reckon paddocks here mightn't have been reseeded since the 60's or possibly longer. A neighbour told me there was some grants or scheme to do it back then.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 28-05-2017 07:55PM

Username John wrote: »

If I could suggest getting the Ph and the indexs right first... if you don't, then you will spend a lot getting them right, or else your reseed won't come as good as you'd like...

I think you would also want to be fairly highly stocked... you need to eat the reseed well down in the first while, but you also need to feed it... both of which are hard without being highly stocked...

+1 on this.

If you get the grasses you have growing first with lime and P&K and enough N, you will automatically grow more grass. If you get your paddocks going properly, and that will take a few years of making mistakes in allocating and cutting bales /silage off, you will be growing more grass again. And feeding the grass will encourage the better grasses to increase in the sward so in a few years you will have a much better sward without spending much on reseeding.

Each stage will mean having and feeding more animals. At that stage, you will be better able to utilise the new reseeded paddocks to their max and get the best return from it.

rangler1 · 28-05-2017 08:44PM

Green farmer wrote: »

After reseeding, how many bags of 18 6 12 would you recommend a year, for grazing paddocks. reckon paddocks here mightn't have been reseeded since the 60's or possibly longer. A neighbour told me there was some grants or scheme to do it back then.

You should be getting some level of response from the fertiliser that you're putting on this year, land here is index 2 and 3 in P and K so not over fertile and the PH is 6 to 6.2 so not that high in lime either.
It got two bags/acre of 18 6 12 on the 20 march and will probably need one hundred weight CAN/acre in the next couple weeks and we're stocked at 7.5 ewes/acre
because we're so heavily stocked this year we're measuring grass weekly to ensure that there's always 12 -14 days grass ahead of them. As soon as that reduces under 12 days we'll go with nitrogen
Just edited to saythat reseeds last 7 -10 years, our land hasn't been reseeded since the 1980s, so if I was in your position I'd be pushing out the 18 6 12 and wondering why you're not getting a response before I'd gamble a reseed on the land, there has to be something else wrong

Green farmer · 28-05-2017 09:31PM

[quote="rangler1
Just edited to saythat reseeds last 7 -10 years, our land hasn't been reseeded since the 1980s, so if I was in your position I'd be pushing out the 18 6 12 and wondering why you're not getting a response before I'd gamble a reseed on the land, there has to be something else wrong[/quote]

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. Ive been getting down and examining the award and there's loads of non productive vegetation there ( I'm guessing 50 % of sward ) . It's a lovely dry field, so just want to try and get it right. I was talking to another guy who said he adds clover seed into sheep ration in early spring, and the sheep pass it out in their manure. Sort of encapsulated in its own fertiliser pellet. Then chain Harrow it around.

Kevhog1988 · 28-05-2017 09:34PM

Has anyone else seen a serious amount of buttercups on land this year??

rangler1 · 28-05-2017 09:43PM

Green farmer wrote: »

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. Ive been getting down and examining the award and there's loads of non productive vegetation there ( I'm guessing 50 % of sward ) . It's a lovely dry field, so just want to try and get it right. I was talking to another guy who said he adds clover seed into sheep ration in early spring, and the sheep pass it out in their manure. Sort of encapsulated in its own fertiliser pellet. Then chain Harrow it around.

yea,That's how nettles get out into the middle of the field in sheep pastures.,
They eat the seed heads in the ditch and **** it out in the middle of the field....great medium for propagating seeds anyway
If the sward is as open as you say it should work, I got a great take just spreading it and walking it in but the sward got way too thick and smothered it
How much 18 6 12 have you to the acre so far this year

Green farmer · 28-05-2017 09:57PM

rangler1 wrote: »

How much 18 6 12 have you to the acre so far this year

I think it's got about 2 bags so far, spread at a rate of 3/4 bag at a time. It's also got the kick from lime. It's coming back fast, but just not gone on what's coming up. The ground has a lot of that small flat growing plantain that's smothering out the grass, but on a positive note loads of clover.

razor8 · 28-05-2017 10:04PM

I've done a lot of overseeding with good success. It's a cheap way of turning around land. Costs €50/acre to stitch it in, €50/60 for seed & whatever it costs to burn it off with round up. Doesn't take as long to come back into rotation either compared to ploughing

rangler1 · 28-05-2017 10:05PM

Green farmer wrote: »

I think it's got about 2 bags so far, spread at a rate of 3/4 bag at a time. It's also got the kick from lime. It's coming back fast, but just not gone on what's coming up. The ground has a lot of that small flat growing plantain that's smothering out the grass, but on a positive note loads of clover.

probably should've put it all on at the start, it's easy grow too much grass in may and hard to grow any grass in april so I don't target any N for growth in May. From your description, reseed is probably the best way in your case

Username John · 28-05-2017 10:06PM

Green farmer wrote: »

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. .

From my soil test, we're index 1 for P - the results said it needed 35-49kg / ha...

35kg P would be 12 bags of 18-6-12, per acre that would be nearly 5 bags / acre...

I think P is needed for root development, putting in a reseed into ground without fixing this is a bad idea...

I have the ground to prove it...

10-10-20 might be a better fertiliser for you? I got 0-16-0 this year, as I don't need the N or K...
They are all fcuking expensive tho

rangler1 · 28-05-2017 10:07PM

razor8 wrote: »

I've done a lot of overseeing with good success. It's a cheap way of turning around land. Costs €50/acre to stitch it in, €50/60 for seed & whatever it costs to burn it off with round up. Doesn't take as long to come back into rotation either compared to ploughing

Do you not use lime or 10 10 20

razor8 · 28-05-2017 10:15PM

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

Username John · 28-05-2017 10:26PM

razor8 wrote: »

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

Ah, go way with yourself and don't be rubbing your index 4 in our noses...

rangler1 · 28-05-2017 10:30PM

razor8 wrote: »

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

lime is needed at direct drilling because the trash decomposing on the surface lowers the PH of the top inch and effects the germination, obviously not a problem in your case

razor8 · 28-05-2017 10:51PM

I am very sceptical of my index 4s!!

Always majority of fields come back 4 but fields don't look like it

I challenged one lab and they said in a few circumstances the Morgan test for soil can through false readings in a few areas around the country. Think Kildare was one area. He said to get it tested in Northern Ireland who use a different technique, can't remember the name and see what comes back. On the to do list

razor8 · 28-05-2017 11:01PM

Interesting article on how complex the whole area of soil sampling is

http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/Why_Labs_Have_Different_Soil_Test_Results.htm

farawaygrass · 01-06-2017 09:17PM

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

Username John · 01-06-2017 09:26PM

farawaygrass wrote: »

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

Growth is gone mad here the last 2 weeks, you couldn't keep ahead of it without taking out paddocks or topping (neither of which I do)
But I think if you want top class grass all the time, you will need to do one or the other at some point...

ganmo · 01-06-2017 09:40PM

farawaygrass wrote: »

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

sometimes ya just have to top or you are suffering for the rest of the year.

rangler1 · 01-06-2017 09:50PM

farawaygrass wrote: »

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

there's probably 25% more grass grew this year than this time last year, all you can do is do your best, dairy farmers go to huge rounds to stop grass getting out of control, the option of skipping paddocks and cutting them gives a huge afvantage.
Grass grows different every year and the same stocking rate that worked last year certainly won't this year so you have to top/mow some fields. Any grass they don't eat this grazing round is going to be very poor quality next round

farawaygrass · 01-06-2017 10:32PM

Ya last year I really struggled keeping grass in front of stock, that's why I went with a lot more fertiliser this year. I hoped to have a lot of fencing done at this stage but the lad doing it got held up. The recent rain here in Galway was very very welcome too as grass was very slow but not bad now. Looks like I have a lot of topping to do so!!

DJ98 · 01-06-2017 10:39PM

When is grass considered too high to graze?

charolais0153 · 01-06-2017 10:46PM

DJ98 wrote: »

When is grass considered too high to graze?

If its all leafy I don't care but when it start getting stemmy they won't eat it down so try and eat it while its still all leafy

Green farmer · 01-06-2017 10:54PM

Rotated them this evening after 4 days in paddock. They skinned the place lovely, everything eaten but stemmy tranines

Rotational grazing

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