# can anyone help me restore my pasture? Info needed



## lamoncha lover (Mar 1, 2009)

If I get some pictures of my weeds can anyone tell me what I ought to do to get my pasture restored? I did call the county extension agent..and a soil test will be done as soon as I can get to it.
I have many weeds I cannot identify..and a lot of ?>daisys? and tons of wild onions. Think much of the grass is brome? Will cows eat brome?
I am hoping to restore my pasture with out having to disc and poison it all. I am a newby and can honestly say other then what I have read about rotational grazing..I am totally clueless.
I have about and this is a big guess..6 acres of field.it is divided into 3 areas..and one scarifice area all with access to the one lean to and water source. All areas are able to be closed off from each other.
I have 3 horses ointhis land and seem every ear it gets more and more overtaken with weeds and less grass for my horses.
we have a little kabota 25 hp tractor with a disc and a bush hog.
We maybe can get access to chicken (broiler) fertilizer. I want to get this area in shape for next year. Thanks in advance


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

IMO It is too late to establish a permanent pasture at this time. For now your best bet is to keep the weeds from going to seed by using the bush hog.
The weeds get a foothold because the horses are eating the desirable plants into oblivion. Good pastures take time to get ahead of the unwanted plants. Until you get a well established root system the sought after plants will get stressed by almost any grazing and dry weather. Take the horses off the pasture for a year or more starting this Fall and plant your grass seed in early September. Have the chicken litter spread at that time also. Hold off sowing the legumes until a few weeks prior to the last frost following the Winter of 2011. Go ahead now and get your PH correct. Do not graze the planted area in the Spring of 2012. Just timely clip the seed heads only off the grass. The tall grass will choke the weeds back and suppress the new emergence of weeds. The clipping of the grass will also stop the tall weeds that do emerge from producing seed. Come Fall of 2012 you should have a lot of forage to stockpile for feeding.


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## lamoncha lover (Mar 1, 2009)

Hey and thanks for the response. I was hoping to get your opinion.
I had called the extension agent. His advice is to keep it mowed fertilize /lime if needed and of course it will be needed. then to disc it all up about 4 times. then plant fescue in the fall I think he said..and later in the winter/spring plant white clover. Then use 24d to kill weeds. I was worried it would kill my clover (he assured me it wouldn't at the lower doses he recomends)
It seems to me the costliest way to get my pasture going.
and i am concerned about killing off broadcaated clover.
sure wish i had beenon top of this before..now I have a mess.


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## lamoncha lover (Mar 1, 2009)

oh and thanks for the advice. If I have to hay the horses for a year or so..guess thats what i have to do.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Can you re-do half of it at a time? that's what I would do so your horses would still have grass.


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

As you probably already know, by the shear nature of a horse's grazing habits, they are probably one of the hardest oppresions to establishing a pasture as anything in nature. They crop the grasses off extremely low. Coupled with any variable in the weather, this is detrimental in establishing pastures. 

I've got some ground that was called my "horse pasture" for three years. When the horses started out on it there was a well established 5 acre paddock of bermuda grass. Now, after getting rid of the horsed two years ago, there's an abundance of ragweed and bitterweed with a scant showing of desireable grass underneath. The overgrazing and overpressuring of the pasture is going to take me years to overcome.


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## RdoubleD (Oct 12, 2004)

If you fertilizer you will get rid of the daisy problem. Also lime will do wonders to the soil and encourage grass to grow again. 24d will kill any broad leaf plant including clover.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

francismilker, not only do horses crop the grass very low, they also have a natural instinct to paw so if the grass is too short for them to bite, they start pawing which leaves an even bigger problem.


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