Reseeding grass for suckler cows, why bother ?

[Aspiring Peasant]

There is a big difference between neglected permanent pasture and managed permanent pasture. We have taken over neglected permanent pasture and increased yield by 50% (as measured by bales per acre) by spraying with forefront, trying to fix drains, liming and trying to increase p and K indices, spreading a lot of muck, trying to avoid poaching and managing grazing better. All that costs a lot of money but needs doing before considering reseeding in my opinion. I'm now looking enviously at my neighbours regularly reseeded leys and wondering whether to start ploughing as I bought silage off him this year and it definitely saved on cake costs. However buying the silage from him might well be the best option if I was sure he would have enough spare each year.

 

[Henarar]

This kind of discussion goes a long way to showing why 20% of farms produce 80% of the food. Which is fine, unless the payments stop?

Let that 20% carry on there don't seem to be much of a shortage of food going by the waste
Profit from the land you have is important production isn't
You tell me then what would be the point of producing more calves every year and only make the same money?
All that would do is suppress the market for everyone
Kev maybe better of if I bought the seed from him the local dealer may better off selling me metal and the fuel company may be better off but me no

If your talking about food for people to eat produced in this country I wouldnt think any of that 20% would be suckler farmers

 

[Henarar]

I am struggling to imagine what you mean by “the field had slipped”?
Do you mean the soil had run down the hill even in a permanent pasture?

Not run off like you get in a ploughed field
I think what causes it is greensand under the clay moving when it gets wet but I don't know this for sure. The topsoil don't move but drops in big dips or ledges. We have one field that you could park a t20 in and not see it lookig across the field. Dad said it was quite flat 70 years ago. It only happens in certain bits of certain fields

 

[Top Tip.]

I tend to reseed our silage ground regularly as you can see the benefit in more bales our grazing ground it’s more a case of trying to keep ph,p and k up.

 

[P.O.T]

I think it has been proven that reseeding it definitely better,within reason. Depends on current management. PH correct, p and k at 3 the new ley will out preform an old pp easily. Even a 10% increase in yield is a huge amount over a whole farm. Better to have too much than not enough.

 

[czechmate]

Not run off like you get in a ploughed field
I think what causes it is greensand under the clay moving when it gets wet but I don't know this for sure. The topsoil don't move but drops in big dips or ledges. We have one field that you could park a t20 in and not see it lookig across the field. Dad said it was quite flat 70 years ago. It only happens in certain bits of certain fields

. I can't imagine such a thing

 

[Kevtherev]

At the end of the day it’s all down to management and how the land&soil is looked after.
Drainage
Lime
Compaction
P&K levels
No grass will perform if these are overlooked.
Stocking rates and grazing management very important as is selecting the correct grass ley to suit your farm and soil type.

 

[Kevtherev]

Not run off like you get in a ploughed field
I think what causes it is greensand under the clay moving when it gets wet but I don't know this for sure. The topsoil don't move but drops in big dips or ledges. We have one field that you could park a t20 in and not see it lookig across the field. Dad said it was quite flat 70 years ago. It only happens in certain bits of certain fields

I have seen that henrar usually down to groundwater causing the slips.
I’ve seen clay shear off shale due to underground springs.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Also it depends much on what you were thinking of planting and how its persistence would be on your soil type there, @Henarar ?

If it was just going to be ryegrass and clover it would probably be a fairly short lived experiment, and possibly the same for many of the ingredients of these herbal ley mixes with deeper roots, many are dry soil plants so you may or may not have joy long term; in the immediate term you have a diverse sward with plenty of "weeds" and healthy stock good turf to keep them from cutting through and little expense to try to maintain high grass production.

Judging by your above comment you aren't intending to feed the whole country from your patch, so I would still vote for sticking with what grows best there - if you want more productivity then I would invest in electric fences as @hendrebc said well in his post, if you spent the same time on subdivision as you would working down one paddock I think you would maybe see a difference across your entire acreage?

Few hundred quid well spent IMO, little calves and sheep go under a single wire and you can vary what the big cattle do and where they go - concentrate them where you want the benefits of their excrements. All I do here is split a field in half with a 3-wire and each half with single wire 5 minute fences into the right size break for a day

What I am seeing here is a marked improvement on those areas that stock seldom go unless to eat, because we are building topsoil, normally they just deplete them and overgraze whereas by having the right animals there at the right time they are doing a job for me.... and thus themselves....

The next thing is, would you like to run more cattle or are you quite happy with the numbers you run now? I am basing these posts on the assumption that you are fairly full over winter (as we are here) so extra numbers are of little benefit other than extra grazing days can sometimes help lessen the number of housed animal days - regardless of where the forage is grown that is my biggest expense here and the biggest time-sink.
Not trying to be discouraging but trying to establish whether your question in the OP is going to be production or profit, plenty of suckler herds don't seem to be making much margin (from the last few threads) and it is often simply overproduction driving that.
Are 10% more cattle on 5% less effective grazing area going to boost your profits?

 

[Henarar]

. I can't imagine such a thing

It is quite interesting as well as being a nuisance, mostly happens over lots of years but a couple of times I have walked across a field at the end of the winter having not been in there for a few months and thought WTF is going on because something is different

Its not lack of drainage, one field we had drained properly loads of drains stoned nearly to the top and part of this field still does it

had a place in one field where very wet clay was coming out under and washing off down the stream, the topsoil didn't move just dropped down in a big dip, I managed to stop this by pushing loads of long willow branches in as far as the slew would push them in a line by the stream and a load more in the dip these took root and are growing and it seems to have worked ok, it would take at a guess a thousand ton to fill the dip back up this is most likely being dredged out down on the levels

 

[Henarar]

I have seen that henrar usually down to groundwater causing the slips.
I’ve seen clay shear off shale due to underground springs.

yea there is loads of springs around here, some we use for the cattle to drink, perhaps the water finds a different way sometimes and causes the underling clay/greensand to get very wet and move,

 

[Will Blackburn]

Let that 20% carry on there don't seem to be much of a shortage of food going by the waste
Profit from the land you have is important production isn't
You tell me then what would be the point of producing more calves every year and only make the same money?
All that would do is suppress the market for everyone
Kev maybe better of if I bought the seed from him the local dealer may better off selling me metal and the fuel company may be better off but me no

If your talking about food for people to eat produced in this country I wouldnt think any of that 20% would be suckler farmers

The government may want to increase biodiversity, easy, close down the 80% who produce a relatively insignificant amount of food.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

The government may want to increase biodiversity, easy, close down the 80% who produce a relatively insignificant amount of food.

Those "80%" are probably many many more times biodiverse than the "20%" anyway.

And are these 80:20 figures something you've plucked out of the air or have some basis in the real world?

 

[Henarar]

The government may want to increase biodiversity, easy, close down the 80% who produce a relatively insignificant amount of food.

It's not insignificant its bloody good plenty in the freezer

 

[DRC]

Reseeding pays. Did this field last autumn and just had a much bigger and earlier crop of good quality stuff. In its last year or two before reseeding, it was all dandelions and poor grass . Had a crop of spring barley off it to help clean it up.
Do a field each year .

 

[Will Blackburn]

It was on here so it must be true.

Ploughed fields and farmed grassland are hardly the green wilderness idyll, sorry to disappoint.

 

[Whitepeak]

Just going on experience on our own farm. We thought that the cows were doing ok and wintering well on the silage we were making. However 2yrs ago we reseeded 17ac of silage ground, with the longest term ley we could buy, as it was getting to the stage that there were more docks, dandelions and buttercups than grass. We finished 75 store lambs on it the first winter, it was mucked, got 1st cut in early June then we got a 2nd cut in September after having no muck or fertiliser between cuts. The cows have wintered far better and held condition better on the 1st cut than the pp haylage we made despite the seeds being cut later. And the 2nd cut was fed to cows suckling calves who milked like trains and gained weight without extra feed. The seeds are currently nearly ready for cutting whereas the pp is at least a month off. So I’m pretty sold on reseeding silage ground.
Our grazing ground doesn’t lend itself to reseeding however, I’ve never know any of it being done. But I would like to work it harder than the current set stocking. If we can do that without reseeding that would be great.

 

[Henarar]

View attachment 673128 Reseeding pays. Did this field last autumn and just had a much bigger and earlier crop of good quality stuff. In its last year or two before reseeding, it was all dandelions and poor grass . Had a crop of spring barley off it to help clean it up.
Do a field each year .

Looks good I am going to mow some more of our old grass today. This field has been reseeded though in 1986

 

[TurboCon]

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/does-it-pay-to-invest-in-grazing-infrastructure/

 

[Bossfarmer]

this thread sums up why people on here claim i cant possibly get 15 bales/acre of reasonable silage, if your not reseeding youll never get close, i assumed most on here would be ploughing up grass every 5 years grain for 5 years then back to grass