To graze or not to graze

Chev54 · Jan 14, 2023

I’ve got this ley that the plantain has grown seriously well since the sheep were shut off it.Would you guys recommend I graze it lightly now to knock the plantain back a bit, don’t want it being too strong when I want to graze it with ewes and lambs end of March, but then again don’t want to spoil it. Will it get too strong by then ? It’s 11 acres and Was thinking could leave 20 breeding ram lambs on it for a month and hopefully theyl knock it back a bit.

DanM · Jan 14, 2023

Chev54 said:
I’ve got this ley that the plantain has grown seriously well since the sheep were shut off it.Would you guys recommend I graze it lightly now to knock the plantain back a bit, don’t want it being too strong when I want to graze it with ewes and lambs end of March, but then again don’t want to spoil it. Will it get too strong by then ? It’s 11 acres and Was thinking could leave 20 breeding ram lambs on it for a month and hopefully theyl knock it back a bit.

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Doesn’t need knocking back. Leave it be, so you’ll have clean grazing for your ewes and lambs

onesiedale · Jan 14, 2023

put 20 ram lambs on there and they will only eat the good stuff, leave the rest.
As Dan says above. Keep it for the ewes and lambs, they'll have a good bite in front of them this spring.

Derrick Hughes · Jan 14, 2023

Plantain likes a 3 month rest period in winter or you will lose a lot of summer yield although you should not let it get above 10 inches

neilo · Jan 14, 2023

Derrick Hughes said:
Plantain likes a 3 month rest period in winter or you will lose a lot of summer yield although you should not let it get above 10 inches

Which site did you take that from?
I’m not doubting it doesn’t want grazing hard, but surely temperature & growth is more important than farming by calendar dates?

I’d leave that in the OP’s picture too, unless it was in one of those tropical areas that doesn’t see a proper winter.

Derrick Hughes · Jan 15, 2023

neilo said:
Which site did you take that from?
I’m not doubting it doesn’t want grazing hard, but surely temperature & growth is more important than farming by calendar dates?

I’d leave that in the OP’s picture too, unless it was in one of those tropical areas that doesn’t see a proper winter.

I've grown a fair bit here ,does well if you block graze ,graze and rest ,not grazing it to low ,but that's hard here as we winter a lot of sheep on thr grass leys with no supplementary feeding at all, so it gets hammered , when I rested over the winter it did better
Your temperature is correct, which makes things grow out of season, which can make farming more of a challenge than it used to be ,

Chev54 · Jan 15, 2023

Thank you for responses, will leave it till the spring !

To graze or not to graze

Chev54

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DanM

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onesiedale

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Derrick Hughes

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neilo

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Derrick Hughes

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Chev54

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