Establishing a diverse range of grasses and herbs in your pasture (associated with planting of tree crops) provide a optimal environment for a wide range of domestic grazers. This page explores some of the strategies for establishing a diverse and healthy pasture within a productive system using livestock.
The fundamentals involve:
Due to the initial pasture health being poor at many sites - the above method can be used to establish a healthy thriving system. Once soil biology increases and pasture plants start to diversify and gain health the system requires very little (or no) additional inputs - other than management of livestock (as long as it does not dry out, pasture length is maintained and it is associated with other healthy systems that do not adversely impact the soil hydrology or introduce contaminates).
Grazing pasture lightly by just allowing access for one or two days (in some designs stretching to one week) will reduce the tendency for preferential grazing and the eating out of some favourable grazing species. If pasture is grazed too hard this can result in a loss of root activity and depth.
Moisture and nutrients are then more likely to be limiting to these shallow roots, lowering dry matter production, increasing seasonal feed deficits and resulting in poorer feed quality. With a poor root system, recovery of pasture takes longer and overall productivity will suffer. With good root systems on lightly grazed plants, general resilience is increased and legume nitrogen fixation is also improved.
Some desirable grazing species will take longer to recover than some of the main grasses. Re-grazing time should be judged on when these slower recovering species have grown to a stage that one of their full leaves is dying – indicating a fully replenished root system.
Following these principles, a diverse, resilient pasture can be created and regenerated. The advantages of having diverse species present are manifold including tonic effects, reduced susceptibility to grass grub and other issues, less likelihood of pasture toxicity problems, and generally improved animal health and performance
The fundamentals involve:
- Using pigs to turn over and fertilise a paddock / or rototill it.
- Sowing a diversity of grass and herb species.
- Supplementing establishment of a healthy soil ecosystem and pasture diversity through initial application of pro-biotic foliar sprays (in the first two seasons).
- Periodic short intervals of grazing (once plants reach a mature size - but before seeding).
- Periodically allowing pastures to reach full maturity and re seed to maintain pasture diversity (every 3-4 years).
Due to the initial pasture health being poor at many sites - the above method can be used to establish a healthy thriving system. Once soil biology increases and pasture plants start to diversify and gain health the system requires very little (or no) additional inputs - other than management of livestock (as long as it does not dry out, pasture length is maintained and it is associated with other healthy systems that do not adversely impact the soil hydrology or introduce contaminates).
Grazing pasture lightly by just allowing access for one or two days (in some designs stretching to one week) will reduce the tendency for preferential grazing and the eating out of some favourable grazing species. If pasture is grazed too hard this can result in a loss of root activity and depth.
Moisture and nutrients are then more likely to be limiting to these shallow roots, lowering dry matter production, increasing seasonal feed deficits and resulting in poorer feed quality. With a poor root system, recovery of pasture takes longer and overall productivity will suffer. With good root systems on lightly grazed plants, general resilience is increased and legume nitrogen fixation is also improved.
Some desirable grazing species will take longer to recover than some of the main grasses. Re-grazing time should be judged on when these slower recovering species have grown to a stage that one of their full leaves is dying – indicating a fully replenished root system.
Following these principles, a diverse, resilient pasture can be created and regenerated. The advantages of having diverse species present are manifold including tonic effects, reduced susceptibility to grass grub and other issues, less likelihood of pasture toxicity problems, and generally improved animal health and performance
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