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| Warm weather means arrival of spring season |
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Spring has come early for Butler County, Ohio, temperature over 80°F before April 1 is a sure sign of spring. The telephone ringing with questions from backyard enthusiasts and farmers alike, is another sure sign.
Every spring we get a number of calls from people who want to renovate or establish a pasture. Horse pasture is a huge topic in Butler County.
Kentucky bluegrass is a shallow-rooted, cool-season perennial grass that has commonly been used for pasture for horses.
Bluegrass is primarily productive during late spring – early summer and during the fall. It is less productive than other cool-season grasses, but is easy to establish and manage.
Tall fescue is a vigorous-growing, sod-forming cool-season grass that can withstand much trampling. It is suggested for paddocks and areas of surface abuse. This species will retain its leaves into cold weather and will extend the pasture season in Ohio into early spring and early winter. When this species is used, plant only endophyte-free seed to prevent the problems of decreased milk production, decreased growth and possibly placenta abnormalities found with endophyte-infected fescue.
Orchard grass is an early, tall-growing, high-yielding perennial bunchgrass that makes more summer growth than the other grasses grown in Ohio. Orchard grass must be heavily grazed or harvested as hay in May. It requires intense management for maintenance, as it cannot stand trampling or continual close grazing.In general, legumes are important in any pasture mix.
Legumes are nitrogen fixers. When 40 percent of the pasture plants are legumes, adequate nitrogen is supplied by the legume to maintain the production of associated grasses. This is an important economic factor when buying fertilizer. Legumes contain about twice the protein level of grasses. Including legumes in a pasture will increase the nutrient value of the pasture. Legumes enhance the acceptability, digestibility and palatability of the pasture. This generally means better pasture utilization and healthier animals.
White clover is a shallow-rooted perennial that makes little growth during hot dry summer weather. It has a prostrate type of growth that is well suited to permanent pastures and is usually included in pasture mixes. Ladino is a larger variety of the white clover and is recommended over the small white clover for horse pastures because of its greater production.
Red clover is the most widely grown of the true clovers and is frequently included in pasture mixes for horses, where tall fescue or orchard grass is being seeded. Red clover is more tolerant of poorer drained soils and lower pH and is easier to establish than many other legumes. However, it also needs to be reseeded more often that some legumes because it is a plant that lasts about two years.
Grasses need a soil environment that is 6.0 to 7.0 pH and the nutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (potash, K). Legumes need a soil environment that is 6.5 to 7.0, as well as P and K. Often, adequate fertilization and good grazing practices allow pasture plants to increase in number and make the pasture more productive. In general, the soil should contain 20 to 30 parts per million (PPM) phosphorus and 110 to 130 PPM potassium.
Some pastures are to the point that one needs to start over, or the owner wishes to establish a more productive pasture by using different plant species. In general, renovation is done by one of the following methods:
Plowing and preparing a new, firm seedbed free of weeds. Surface tilling or disking up the surface to kill the present vegetation. To do this, the surface needs to be disked, then time allowed for the plants to die and then additional disking until all plants have died.
No-till, which involves using herbicides to kill the present vegetation and then using a no-till drill to plant seeds in the soil under the dead vegetation.
This farm news was published in the April 4, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 4/4/2007 |
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