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This year’s shortfall in rainfall throughout the region has led to reduced yields on many of the local agricultural crops. One of those crops, the many acres of pasture in the county, is no exception. With a perennial crop such as pasture, a good question to ask at this point would be; are my pastures still in dormancy or were they overstressed by the drought? With the recent rains and still mild temperatures you should be able to determine whether or not your pasture will return. There may be a good opportunity to make management decisions on what to do this fall and next spring. It may also be a good time to evaluate your overall pasture management plan and possibly make some changes for the future.

A sound management program includes taking soil tests for all of your pastures. With the ground still being dry, this fall would be an excellent time to amend the soil with lime and fertilizer if necessary. Fertilizer application should be limited to phosphorous and potassium, as the application of nitrogen this late in the growing season would likely be lost over the winter. If needed, the nitrogen could be applied in the spring when plants are growing and can uptake the nitrogen.

The next step is to observe the extent to which your pasture does return with the recent rain. If it has come back, considering the difficult conditions of this past summer, you have done a good job of managing your resource. If this isn’t the case, you may want to consider some other management options. Depending on how you use your pasture, the addition of some clover or other legume could be beneficial. You can also look at the species of grass and possibly try another variety if the one you use hasn’t been working. The late winter/early spring freeze and thaw cycles offer a good opportunity to over seed clover into the pasture and a little bit later in the year would be a good time to drill legumes or grass.

Another management idea worthy of consideration would be to reduce the grazing pressure and increase the duration of recuperation for the pasture plants. A couple of practices that can help in this regard are the construction of a sacrifice lot and a multiple paddock pasture system. A sacrifice lot is a great way to reduce damage to the pasture during inclement weather. It should be located higher on the landscape and have a good grass filter downhill from it. This lot can get torn up by the animals but it will save the other fields from over-use. By having multiple paddocks for grazing you can extend the recuperation period and increase the likelihood of the pasture surviving difficult conditions. For instance, a twenty-acre pasture could be divided into 6, 3-4 acre paddocks. By moving the animals through the system with 5 days in each paddock, each paddock would have a 25-day period in which to recuperate from the 5-day grazing period. The grass would also be more evenly grazed so that the species more favored by the animals would not be selectively grazed to the ground and have a better chance of persisting in the pasture.

By incorporating some or all of these practices into a management system that works for you, and producing aerial photos and a narrative of your management decisions, the MSCD can develop a management plan for your operation. If during this fall and winter you would like our assistance in evaluating your pasture management practices, please give us a call.