Cool Season Pasture Mix

[Drew Carlson]

I am looking at the following mix for a client in northern IL. He is on mostly Kidder Silt Loams that were previously corn and soy. We planted a cool season cover crop mix last fall and followed that with a 16 species warm season mix that will be harvested  at the end of august before planting the cool season mix. I used the excellent "What Should I Plant in My Pasture" fact sheet put together by UW-Extension as a guide. Just looking for thoughts on the species mix. This will be 42 acres of cool season. Some of the land is considered highly erodible due to slopes. The tricky part is the terrain is undulating across short distances so we need the mix to be able to handle slopes as well as some low wetter pocket spots. The long term goal is birdsfoot trefoil as the legume component. The higher seeding rate is due to the plan to plant into the harvest warm season cover crop mix that will be cut as low as possible.

	Common Name	Botanical Name	Rate (lb/ac)	Seeds/lb (approx.)	Seeds/ac (approx.)	Seeds/ sq ft	% by seed
GRASSES
	Orchardgrass	Dactylis glomerata	3.00	400,000	1,200,000	27.55	16.9%
	Smooth Brome	Bromus inermis	3.00	137,000	411,000	9.44	5.8%
	Meadow Fescue	Schedonorus pratensis	2.50	230,000	575,000	13.20	8.1%
	Timothy	Phleum pratense	0.50	1,230,000	615,000	14.12	8.7%
LEGUMES
	Birdsfoot Trefoil	Lotus corniculatus	5.00	350,000	1,750,000	40.17	24.7%
	Red Clover	Trifolium pratense	3.00	275,000	825,000	18.94	11.7%
	Alfalfa (grazing-type)	Medicago sativa	1.50	220,000	330,000	7.58	4.7%
	White Clover	Trifolium repens	0.50	800,000	400,000	9.18	5.6%
FORBS
	Chicory	Cichorium intybus	0.70	400,000	280,000	6.43	4.0%
	Narrowleaf Plantain	Plantago lanceolata	0.55	1,200,000	660,000	15.15	9.3%
	Salad Burnet	Sanguisorba minor	0.70	50,000	35,000	0.80	0.5%
	TOTAL (per acre)		20.95		7,081,000	162.56	100.0%
	TOTAL (× 42 ac)		879.90	lbs total

Thanks!

Drew

[Drew Carlson]

Jason had a great question "What type of livestock." This will be grazed by beef cattle and initially stockers.

Drew

[Ashly Steinke]

What are the goals of the planting?

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[Drew Carlson]

Provide forage for a beef cattle herd, rebuild degraded soils.

Cattle will be grazed early may - late october and pulled from the property.

This will be the cool season component along with an additional 5 acres of old pine plantation that has orchard and canary in it.

We planted an additional 28 acres of warm season natives this spring that will eventually be included as forage.

This land is being leased to a grazer who has experience moving animals well and the herd will have GPS collars.

Drew

[lkp...@gmail.com]

Hi Drew,

I think Jason and Ashly asked, and you answered, most of the questions I have about the context. Now I have some questions and suggestions about the mix itself.

 

First a suggestion: We’ve been recommending that people avoid planting meadow fescue and orchardgrass together because they don’t seem to be very compatible. The meadow fescue is highly palatable and the orchardgrass is less so, so what tends to happen is that the meadow fescue gets overgrazed and the orchardgrass becomes rank and stemmy. Unless the site has relatively high fertility, high moisture holding soils, meadow fescue might not be the best fit for this site. You might want to swap the meadow fescue out for something else. Orchardgrass is an adaptable workhorse that performs well for beef operations and smooth brome and timothy should be compatible. I like adding a bit of perennial ryegrass or festulolium as a nurse crop. It probably will die out after a few years. Another option that you could consider with a note of caution would be improved tall fescue. We’ve had palatability problems with it here in Wisconsin, but farther south, it seems to work tolerably well and that could be a potential addition instead of meadow fescue.

 

Question: what is the goal in including the chicory, plantain and salad burnett? We’ve seen mixed result with all three of them under conditions here in Wisconsin. None of them contribute significantly to tonnage. They may not be worth the cost unless there’s a special reason for having them in the mix.

 

Question: I’m curious why you’ve settled on birdsfoot trefoil as the long-term legume for their pastures. I like seeding down multiple legume species like you have planned. That has worked well for us on our farm. We have not been able to keep much trefoil in the stand. I think it needs to seed itself to maintain a presence and most grazing rotations don’t allow enough time between grazing events.

 

Those are a few of my initial thoughts – curious to see what others are thinking!
Laura

 

Laura Paine

Grazing Outreach Program Coordinator/Resource Conservationist

University of Wisconsin Extension/ NRCS

lkp...@gmail.com

608.338.9039

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[Aaron Pape]

As usual, Laura exudes wisdom.

I'll just take the opportunity to once again voice my hatred for chicory. In the second year of it's biennial cycle it becomes a 6 foot tree and makes it difficult to even run polywire through. Sheep people may love it, but in my experience cattle don't eat it except in it's rosette stage.

Aaron

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[Ashly Steinke]

From a bird perspective i would shy away from sod forming grasses and try and use bunch grasses.  Further, brome is one of the most invasive grasses ever introduced into this country.  Have you ever thought about looking at some of the native cool season grasses?  I have not much yet but would love to see us go that way as a grazing community.

[Drew Carlson]

Thanks for all of this Laura.

We had the meadow fescue for the wetter depression spots. 

The site is not high fertility and the spots aside from the depressions are not high water holding.

The goals with chicory, plantain and salad burner were to add a “forb” component not necessarily for tonnage but for a different plant family in the mix.

The reason for the birds foot was to try and get in a non-bloating legume.

As always, I appreciate everyone in this grazing community providing their wisdom!

Drew

[Drew Carlson]

I have not thought of adding in some native cool seasons with other “standard” cool season species. My understanding is that the cool season natives don’t handle regular rotations well. 

[Ashly Steinke]

Thats interesting about them not holding up.  Is there some data somewhere on that?  I would love to learn more about it.

[lkp...@gmail.com]

I’m going to push back a bit on Ashly’s comments about smooth brome! I too have seen smooth brome behave very aggressively in unmanaged or minimally managed settings, but under standard rotational grazing management, I have never seen it become dominant. Two reasons for that: first, it is a relatively palatable grass and is one of the first grasses to get grazed off and second, most sod forming grasses (with the exception of Kentucky bluegrass) raise their growing points higher into the canopy, so leaving the standard 4 inch residual often removes at least some of them, causing smooth brome to regrow more slowly than the bunch grasses. Like all species, it does have it’s faults, but those of us in the southern part of the state know that smooth brome is a good team player in mixed cool season pastures!

 

Laura Paine

Grazing Outreach Program Coordinator/Resource Conservationist

University of Wisconsin Extension/ NRCS

lkp...@gmail.com

608.338.9039

 

[Marie Raboin]

Hi all!  I am just here to listen and regurgitate all this good info!  I tend to lean into more diversity just because I am always surprised by plants and what grows where. The second I think I have something figured out, it doesn't work.  Or some years something works and some years it doesn't. 

Marie

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Marie