Pasture Management

Pasture Management

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

In order to maximize grazing on your pasture, it needs a little TLC and spring is a good time to analyze your pastures’ needs.

Frank Hendrix, Faculty and Extension at Washington State University in Yakima, shares important factors to consider in pasture management.

Hendrix: “You need to evaluate the water. You should do soil samples to make sure that the nitrogen, sulfur levels are up along with the phosphorus. If a pasture has been a hay field in the past, it is important to get your phosphorus analyzed. The modern forage species we deal with now, do require up to 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre --available nitrogen--and so you have to keep that in consideration. I know that fertilizer can be expensive, but it isn’t that expensive right now. Even if it was a $1,000 per ton, it would still be economically viable to fertilize even 100 pounds per acre.”

A common weed in many pastures is Canadian Thistle. Hendrix shares that the best time to spray is in the summer when the thistle is in the bud stage.

Hendrix: “So spraying too early is a waste of spray and spraying too late will seed your neighbor’s place.”

If it is the first year of your ground being pasture, you’ll want to be watching for annual weeds. Hendrix shares the most effective prevention against annual weeds is mowing as annual weeds’ growth points on their tips.

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.