Pasture management: Clinical approach for best feed growth and quality

A CLINICAL approach to pasture management can help make the grass greener on your side of the fence, writes FIONA MYERS.

Graze anatomy: Grazing management by the book.

THE ability to properly manage grass that grows in paddocks can be integral to farm productivity.

There are farmers who seem to have more feed with similar rainfall and it is not all to do with stocking rate.

When and how paddocks are grazed can be critical to how much feed grows and its quality.

SET AND FORGET

The oldest and most common way to manage pastures is to set stock.

This means livestock are kept in the one paddock for an extended period, with the goal of not overgrazing and baring country, but also not allowing pastures to become overgrown or rank.

There are many fans of set stocking. It requires little input and monitoring, but there are some negatives too.

A set-stocked paddock will not be grazed evenly. It can mean that areas of a paddock that are close to water sources are grazed harder, while other areas may not be grazed as heavily because, for example, they might be close to a road where the stock are disturbed.

Set stocking can also mean under-utilisation of pasture if too few stock are in the paddock, or over utilisation if there are too many.

Stock also don’t eat all pasture species equally and will go for their favourites first. In set stocking, this can mean the tastiest (and sometimes best nutritional value) plants are eaten in preference to other species, and the grazing pressure put on those better species could mean they are eaten out and won’t be there next year.

SPINNING ROUND AND ROUND

Rotational grazing has become more popular in recent years and allows plants to recover after grazing. It’s a system where stock are allowed to graze a paddock for a certain time and then are moved to another paddock.

The trigger to move the stock is not time, but how much grass the stock have eaten. Ideally, the grasses should be short, but not munched to the ground. It’s a similar philosophy to pruning plants. A good haircut on a rose bush will see new fresh growth, but leaving the rose to grow without pruning means it becomes rank and scraggly.

The best feed value is when plants are actively growing, so rotational grazing allows the plants to have their haircut (be grazed) and then time to grow again. The stock is moved out of the paddock when the pasture is eaten to a certain level and then that paddock is left empty and allowed to grow.

Many farmers report huge success with rotational grazing in terms of the ability to run more stock and healthier pastures.

It does require more input than set stocking, as pastures need to be monitored and stock moved when the pastures get eaten down. Knowing pasture species and their growth stages is important, and agronomists can show you when plants are in a growth phase or have become rank, and what to look for so pastures don’t become overgrazed.

It also means that some farmers may need to divide up paddocks. Smaller paddocks mean the grazing pressure is higher as there are more animals in a smaller area. The benefits of this are that the whole area is generally grazed evenly, but it comes at a cost in terms of dividing up those paddocks.

Electric fencing can be used to do this, even for sheep. At worst, some sheep might slip through the electric fence but if it is only a few and the bulk are in the paddock where you want them, then it’s not going to put huge grazing pressure on the locked-up area.

TAKING A SPELL

There are also critical times when it is good to lock up pastures, full stop. One of those is when pastures are setting seed, and this is when you can determine what next year’s paddocks will look like if there is good rain.

There is always the temptation to keep pastures grazed efficiently, but seed set is vital. It is possible to create a plan where some paddocks are chosen to be allowed to set seed each year, which will build up the bank of seeds in the soil.

Overgrazed pastures will not set seed, so you may have to resow paddocks to pastures. This comes at a big cost, not only to buy the seed and nurse the pastures through their first year but also means those paddocks cannot be grazed at all for a certain time, and when they are grazed, need to be treated carefully for the first year.

QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

When it comes to pasture, it is quality, not quantity that matters. A paddock of phalaris that stands higher than the fence might look like the neighbour has a lot of feed, but the nutritional value of that feed could be nothing more than cardboard.

The lower nutritional value of pastures that are at their biggest growth phase can mean the stock are eating more, but are getting less out of it.

It’s important not to graze too hard when the pastures are first growing, but when they are really starting to surge ahead, not to let them get too rank. It’s a balancing act that requires keen knowledge and observation.

FEED ME

Fertiliser is a key ingredient to high quality pastures, too. Don’t just go out and order a few tonnes of fertiliser though. Get a soil test done (your local agronomist can do this) so the right fertiliser mix can be applied for the greatest pasture benefits.

And don’t forget that well-managed pastures can increase health of the soil. A lucerne stand will be pumping nitrogen back into the soil, as will other legumes.

The root growth from well-managed pastures will boost organic matter and then better water infiltration will occur.

Having good pastures takes management and time, but the benefits can be well and truly worth it.

Agriculture journalist Fiona Myers has expertise in livestock and wool.