Pasture Cropping

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Week or so later than intended but 5 acres of pasture crop or what ever you want to call it going in today. 10 different species in my mix so will be interesting to see what happens.
Just hope the promised rain comes over the weekend otherwise I suspect it'll be an expensive flop!
20190524_150355.jpg


Have also slot seeded another 5 acres of herbal let type stuff in another field.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Week or so later than intended but 5 acres of pasture crop or what ever you want to call it going in today. 10 different species in my mix so will be interesting to see what happens.
Just hope the promised rain comes over the weekend otherwise I suspect it'll be an expensive flop!
View attachment 802312

Have also slot seeded another 5 acres of herbal let type stuff in another field.
I dont think there's a lot of rain about ..going to roll it or not?
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Well the wheat has taken. Probably better than I expected in some place and worse in others.
0302441E-967B-4911-A239-6596F9B21908.jpeg

Dont know where the clover has come from unless it’s because I’ve limed and it’s always been there just not flourished with bad ph.
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The wheat doesn’t have much leaf and is going to head already.
Would it be wise to graze it quickly now to nip tops off and hopefully encourage some more leaf and tillering ?
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Well the wheat has taken. Probably better than I expected in some place and worse in others.
View attachment 805546
Dont know where the clover has come from unless it’s because I’ve limed and it’s always been there just not flourished with bad ph.
View attachment 805548 View attachment 805550
The wheat doesn’t have much leaf and is going to head already.
Would it be wise to graze it quickly now to nip tops off and hopefully encourage some more leaf and tillering ?
How long has it been since you threw the seed out? It's grown very quickly if it's going to head already I thought it was early may you were going to do it?
Hi, I have just picked up on this thread. We are doing a form of pasture cropping here on tired permanent pasture.
We drilled in oats, beans, wheat and vetch on the 1st of November as a trial and possibly some early grazing. It took really well, no slugs or crows as to them it was still a field of grass. The seed was untreated and no chemicals were used. It had a dose of compost at 8 Ton to acre in October.
It has come up well now at 6-7 inches. We were going to graze it all but are now leaving a swath to take to grain, just to see what happens. View attachment 771612View attachment 771614View attachment 771616
How did this go @edwhite ?
 

edwhite

Member
How long has it been since you threw the seed out? It's grown very quickly if it's going to head already I thought it was early may you were going to do it?

How did this go @edwhite ?

Started grazing it about 3 weeks ago, then cut the rest for silage which yielded well , aiming to drill about 60 acres this autumn with a similar 6 way mix of oats, peas, vetch, barley, kale and beans. The cows loved it and it grew well and pushed the original grass on as well. It also looks like it starved out the docks that were in the field as well. Due to it growing through the winter, ahead of the spring growing docks
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Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
It’s just 4 weeks since I spun it on.
I’m hoping that it is the wheat as it certainly looks like it ?
or I’m stumped unless the Aliens have been and spread something...
It’s had no rain until last week only the morning dew so I’m really surprised it’s taken so well as the pigeons and crows gave it some grief too.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Started grazing it about 3 weeks ago, then cut the rest for silage which yielded well , aiming to drill about 60 acres this autumn with a similar 6 way mix of oats, peas, vetch, barley, kale and beans. The cows loved it and it grew well and pushed the original grass on as well. It also looks like it starved out the docks that were in the field as well. Due to it growing through the winter, ahead of the spring growing docks View attachment 805584View attachment 805586View attachment 805590
Good stuff (y)
I'd been thinking about it and it looks better than I expected fair play.
I've tried a strip of oats again this spring but I didn't manage to get it grazed after drilling because of the spray/grazing interval and by the time it was ready the oats had germinated and were out :rolleyes: never mind the oats are there in the non sprayed bit and look to be doing ok competing against the knackered grass and are at a similar stage to the ones in the sprayed part of the field so we will see. I did see a few oats growing and coming to head last week on the side of the road in amongst the long grass so I'm hopeful it will work.
 

clemmo

Member
Well the wheat has taken. Probably better than I expected in some place and worse in others.
View attachment 805546
Dont know where the clover has come from unless it’s because I’ve limed and it’s always been there just not flourished with bad ph.
View attachment 805548 View attachment 805550
The wheat doesn’t have much leaf and is going to head already.
Would it be wise to graze it quickly now to nip tops off and hopefully encourage some more leaf and tillering ?

That looks more like grasses in that photo ?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
It’s just 4 weeks since I spun it on.
I’m hoping that it is the wheat as it certainly looks like it ?
or I’m stumped unless the Aliens have been and spread something...
It’s had no rain until last week only the morning dew so I’m really surprised it’s taken so well as the pigeons and crows gave it some grief too.


The wheat is in with the grass hopefully.
View attachment 805648
I'm sure that's a grass. There's no way wheat would have reached that stage in 4 weeks. :(
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
God knows what it is then.
The lime must have sparked something into life from below as I’ve never seen it in here before.
Could it possibly be Timothy ?
I’ll try get some better photos next time I’m up there. Maybe even tonight.
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Timothy at a guess
9F8DBB3A-F411-4510-9704-0B7670AD726C.jpeg
6616E162-8DEB-4C26-BB1E-E6B58988239F.jpeg

The seed heads have softened a lot this last couple of days. They were really hard a couple of days ago.
I’m guessing the ph adjustment may have encouraged these old seeds to germinate as I’ve never seen it in here before and certainly never spread any on and the neighbours around me don’t have any.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Timothy at a guess View attachment 805890 View attachment 805892
The seed heads have softened a lot this last couple of days. They were really hard a couple of days ago.
I’m guessing the ph adjustment may have encouraged these old seeds to germinate as I’ve never seen it in here before and certainly never spread any on and the neighbours around me don’t have any.
Looks more like Crested Dogstail to me. Diversity is a GOOD thing (y):cool:
 

RushesToo

Member
Location
Fingringhoe
Well the wheat has taken. Probably better than I expected in some place and worse in others.
View attachment 805546
Dont know where the clover has come from unless it’s because I’ve limed and it’s always been there just not flourished with bad ph.
View attachment 805548 View attachment 805550
The wheat doesn’t have much leaf and is going to head already.
Would it be wise to graze it quickly now to nip tops off and hopefully encourage some more leaf and tillering ?
Get some of it eaten and some of it trodden. The weather is all wonky and availing some in stomachs and some trodden in for reserves seems sensible.
It is still alright to show off either way. :)

upload_2019-6-3_22-19-46.png
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Week or so later than intended but 5 acres of pasture crop or what ever you want to call it going in today. 10 different species in my mix so will be interesting to see what happens.
Just hope the promised rain comes over the weekend otherwise I suspect it'll be an expensive flop!
View attachment 802312

Have also slot seeded another 5 acres of herbal let type stuff in another field.
So in the interests of sharing results good and bad....
I would say it's had just about the worst of all worlds for a start! The promised rain didn't materialise for several weeks. As a result a few seeds germinated and were hammered by the corvids and pigeons as they couldn't out grow them. Then it rained,
and rained,
and rained.
And it was cold.
Someone mentioned coldest June day on record or something for June 11th.
It's trying to warm up now, (though min of 2° is forecast for SW tonight!) and it's no longer standing in water. So there's more germination, some of it is getting going now though it's patchy.
The poor start has allowed the grass to get going again, but neither is exactly romping away. Hopefully the forecast heat for next week will help things along.
First 2 pics have the 10 species mix. Obvious 1 missing is sorghum. Guess that's wanting heat. Can't see hardly any oats either which is the biggest surprise.
3rd pic is the herbal ley effort which again had some oats which are failing to make an appearance. This ley was a bit of an afterthought, thinking I ought to be making better use of the longer term species I'd bought.
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