Seeding Pastures

After I finally figured out how to get the no-till drill set and calibrated (at least I think I did) I was able to get going on actually getting seed into the ground. I drilled my mix (Pradel Meadow Fescue, Perennial Ryegrass, Orchard Grass, Italian Rye Grass, and Alice White Clover) Saturday afternoon and evening and did about 5 acres. It was nice to see the visible progress of slowing cover more ground and getting a start on adding some cool season grasses to the pasture. It also gave me plenty of time to observe and think as I was bumping along on the tractor. Here are some of my observations:

• There is clover coming up in quite a few places. In fact it is the only thing that is growing on the clay that covers our septic filtration area.
• There really was a lot of bare ground in the pasture. In some places the switchgrass stand had just become very thin and in other places the brush had gotten so think that it shaded out all the grass. That was especially true in the area where I mowed down the brush yesterday.
• The lack of quality grass and the bare ground was kind of depressing at times.
• I have no idea what I'm doing! Yesterday while I was taking a break from the tractor I tweeted, "Ever feel like you're doing something, but not sure if you're doing it right? I do ..." I knew that seed was leaving the drill, but if it will ever grow ... of that I'm not sure!
• Warm season grasses are just that ... warm season. As I look at my pasture I don't see the lush green that surrounds the farms around me ... oh for some lush and thick grass. It will come in time.
• I'm excited about the possibilities of mob grazing ... if ever there was a farm that could use some good microbe management this is it!
• Now ... I'm praying for grass to grow!

Comeback Farms :: Chapters 12 Book Report

Greg Judy does not use a tractor (at least that's what it sounds like in this book). He purchases all the hay he needs and moves it around with his truck and a bale trailer. He uses this set up to move the bale around and to unroll it. Besides that it sounds like he uses his ATV quite a bit for everything else. So, the topic of chapter 12 seems to be right up his ally. In this chapter he talks about reducing his fuel consumption and letting the animals do the work. I think I need to agree with him!

Just yesterday I looked out and saw all this brush sticking up in the pasture that I'm going to reseed in the next week or two. I decided that I need to go out there and knock those down with the mower (you have to realize that these are basically just sticks coming out of the ground because the cows striped them bare last summer). So, I fired up the tractor and hooked up my 5 foot brush hog. After a couple of passes I realized how wasteful this was really going to be. It wasted my time and my money and all to knock down a few sticks! There are a couple patches that I need to knock down with a saw, but really I don't think they will hamper the no-till drill any and once we get out there grazing I'm sure they will disappear under some cattle pressure.

This all leads me to what is really on my mind right now ... pasture seeding (I know that was a short book report, but it was the end of section one of the book so it was a good break). I am now on the list to use the no-till drill that is housed at our County Park (funds for it coming from multiple sources) and I need to get my pasture seeding mixes nailed down.

Last week I mentioned the Grassfed Webinar that I listened to online and I was very excited to see the "pro" (in this case Doug Gunnink) offer a good pasture mix for Iowa that he likes to see people use. Here is the mix he suggested:

• 35% Pradel Meadow Fescue
• 35% BG 24T Perennial Ryegrass
• 13% Baraula Orchardgrass
• 10% Green Spirit Italian Ryegrass
• 7% Alice White Clover

I think all of these varieties are from the Barenbrug company and I'm not sure yet if I will be able to find them in my area. So, I was wondering if anyone out there had any suggestions for pasture mixes. Mr. Gunnink suggested seeding that mix at 25 lbs. per acre. I'm going to hit part of my pasture this year and then see what happens next year. Thanks for any thoughts or help!

Pasture Seeding Questions...

I'm not even going to look down and see how long it has been since I last posted ... I'm sorry to those of you that read regularly and those of you that have been wondering where I have been. I'm especially sorry because I thought I was going to get going again after that last break. Nonetheless, here I am writing a blog post again. I haven't stopped farming, but I have been plenty busy on the farm and at the church and trying to figure out all the puzzle pieces that need to get put together before the ground freezes and the snow flies. To get the "blog ball" rolling again I think I'll just start out with an easy post...

As you may or may not remember I have been using a springtooth harrow and a drag harrow to bust up the anthills on the farm. Doing this has brought into sharp focus the need (or my desire) to reseed a few areas of the pasture. There are some areas that are so over grown with brush and prickly elms that once all that is removed I'll pretty much have bare ground (or weeds only). So, I would like to do some pasture seeding on maybe a third of our pastures. And, maybe broadcast some seed on a few other areas.

My question, and I realize this is a very location specific question, is what type of pasture mixes would you recommend if you were going to be drilling in some seed? And, when you would you suggest doing it (this fall or in the spring)? I would love to hear any thoughts people have on this subject and I'll be doing a bit of research myself, so I'll report back.

As always, thanks for reading and I'm sorry for such incredibly sporadic posts ;)