• Email List Signup
  • Catalog
1-717-687-6224
[email protected]
  • Find Products
    • Perennial Forages
      • Grasses
      • Alfalfa and Clover
      • Perennial Mixtures
      • Perennial Forbs
    • Cover Crops
    • Cool Season Annuals
    • Summer Annuals
      • Forage Sorghum, Sorghum Sudan, and Sudangrass
      • Grain Sorghum
      • Mixtures, Teff, Millet, Brassicas
      • Sunflowers, Sunn Hemp, Buckwheat & More
      • Soybeans
    • Corn
    • Organic Seed – Forage, Cover Crop, and Grain
    • Industrial Hemp
    • Wildlife Food Plots
    • Turf Type Products
    • Forage Inoculant Products
    • Biologicals & Seed Stimulants
    • Seed Treatment And Coating Information
    • John Deere Financial
  • Find Your Dealer
  • Resources
    • King’s Agriseed Blog
    • Farm Planning Tools and Calculators
    • Forage Technical Reference Encyclopedia
    • Season Product Guides / Newsletters
    • Organic Certification
    • Product Literature
    • Recommended Reading & Presentations
    • Steps to Success
    • Supported Organizations
    • Winter Meeting Video Recordings
  • Dealer Portal
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Who We Are
    • Become a Dealer
    • Press Room
  • Staff Directory
We moved! We are now located at 1828 Freedom Rd, Suite 101, Lancaster PA. We look forward to continuing to serve you!

The Benefits of Clipping Pastures

12 years ago

Try out a simple pasture management upgrade this year – invest a little time to clip grass after each grazing, especially a heavy grazing. It evens out pasture, promoting uniform regrowth, and preserves the forage in a vegetative state. If the cattle have grazed selectively, it prevents the overlooked species from becoming rank before the rest of the pasture.

In a rotational grazing system, clip the pasture immediately after removing the animals, especially in spring, when companion grass growth is stemmy. Lower, more evenly growing grass lets more sunlight reach lower and closely-grazed species and also eliminates older grasses that are heading and not as digestible. A lack of maintenance tends to favor less-grazed species.

Clipping just before the pasture’s rest period promotes uniform growth and helps prevent a select few species from taking over. It also stimulates tillering and root growth, which means a denser stand, and can prevent any remaining weeds from going to seed. It’s especially useful in eliminating or controlling difficult weeds like thistle. Following clipping, tender new grass growth will be stimulated.

You may find that pre-mowing is more appropriate to your needs than post-mowing, especially if you are trying to manage pasture that has gotten a little too mature. This gives you the same benefits of post-mowing, and you may not have to waste the cut material. With wide-swathing, it will dry quickly in the sun and continue to produce sugars, since the grass has no root structure to send the sugars back to. This makes it sweeter and more palatable, and you can then leave it for the cows the graze. Pre-mowing and baling the cut is another option.

Letting two or more species of animals graze can also be a useful management trick, since animals differ in the types of forage they prefer. Sheep like immature grasses and weeds rather than legumes; beef cattle prefer legumes over grass; and goats go for shrubby vegetation, and are generally much less selective. Horses trample and graze quite unevenly, so if you follow with cattle, they will often graze the mature growth left by horses. The typical grazing period on each paddock should be 1 – 2 weeks, but this depends on the size of the paddock and the time of year. During a spring flush, grass may grow more quickly (but growth will be tender), but it often slows down during the drier, hotter weather of summer. With fall rains, growth takes off again.

Speak to an expert at King’s AgriSeeds now at 1-717-687-6224 or email us at [email protected].

 

Previous Post
Western New York Crop Alert 6-15-13: Water Water Everywhere & Emergency Forage Plantings
Next Post
The Hard-Won Benefits of No-till

Related Posts

No results found.

1 Comment. Leave new

  • Kylie Dotts
    August 31, 2017 11:12 am

    It makes sense that by cutting down the pasture it would allow everything to grow evenly instead of just one area or one species. By putting good horse pasture seed down early by the time it became time to cut it down it would already be uniform and of the same species. That way you would have even less to worry about!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

Recent Posts

  • Why Treated Seeds Might Increase Slug Damage and Harm Beneficials
  • King’s AgriSeeds Host Meetings in Four States
  • Phytonutrient Advantage: Building Better Beef
  • Spring Drought Forage Recommendations
  • The Power of Clover in Beef Pastures

Recent Comments

  • Taylor on Regulating the Sugar Intake of Horses on Pasture
  • Paul Diffee on A Pasture Pick-Me-Up for Summer
  • Jennifer Kress on Regulating the Sugar Intake of Horses on Pasture
  • Joe stuckel on Forage Sorghum: Boot Stage Harvest
  • Joe on Horses: A List of Concerns

Blogroll

  • Beef Producer Blog
  • Bill’s Forage Files
  • Dairy Grazing
  • Grass-Based Health
  • Hougar Farms Blog
  • On Pasture
  • Progressive Cattleman
  • Progressive Dairy

Archives

KING’S AGRISEEDS

1828 Freedom Rd, Suite 101
Lancaster, PA 17601
T: (717) 687-6224
F: (717) 824-3731
[email protected]

We offer a vast product line of improved varieties and hybrids.

We service the Middle Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States by providing a full line of forage seed, livestock focused corn hybrids and cover crop seed.

Facebook
X
YouTube

Privacy Policy

© King's Agriseeds

 

You are now browsing King’s AgriSeeds. Back to SoutheastAgriSeeds.com

 

×