During the past few months, I’ve walked across a lot of pastures – at the monthly meetings of our forage study groups and with individual clients. In addition to the vital topics of money, fencing, animals and profit, the conversation inevitably turns to questions such as, “How could we improve this pasture?” or “What forages can we use to renovate it?” Sound familiar?

Woody Lane

Lane Livestock Services / Roseburg, Oregon

Woody Lane is a certified forage and grassland professional with AFGC and teaches forage/grazing ...

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The answer, of course, is, “It depends.” Not particularly satisfying, but we’ve all been there, and a good answer really does depend on lots of things.

I’ve often heard this response from others: “You should try 'XYZ' forage. It really worked well for me. It produced a lot of feed!” Sounds great, sure, and the speaker means well. But, there’s a fair chance that following that suggestion may eat up a lot of money and also cause you to miss a good opportunity for real improvement. XYZ forage may be a great plant, except when it’s not. Details matter.

So, let’s try to put some structure into the question and then some structure into the response.

We’ll approach this systematically.

First, we’ll lay out some assumptions – basic, underlying concepts that need to be met, and if they are not, the options shrink dramatically.

Then, we’ll list some guidelines for making choices.

Next, we’ll show a laundry list of possible forages.

Finally, we’ll describe a fallback option – a "just in case" strategy – that can be very useful under some conditions.

To keep things really organized, I’ll use bullet points because they make reading easy.

Assumptions: If these assumptions are not met, we will need to go back to square one because renovating would be inefficient at best and very costly at worst.

• You really want better forages – or at least different forages from the species that are already in the pasture.
• You’ve taken soil samples. (Of course you have, haven’t you?)
• If the soil is lacking in nutrients or has a low pH, you are willing to do something about it, such as applying limestone and/or commercial fertilizers – or the equivalent if you are certified organic.
• You are willing to change your grazing or harvesting management strategies.
• You have enough funds to do these things.
• You have enough time to do these things – such as moving animals more often, applying fertilizers, using temporary electric fencing, etc.

Guidelines: These are questions to ask about this field before rushing out to buy seed.

• How will this field fit into your entire operation? What do you want from this field? Only grazing? Only hay? Both? Forage growth very early in the season or very late? A sacrifice area? A finishing pasture for young livestock? Or a less demanding pasture for breeding stock? Or a pasture used for both types of animals?
• Do you intend to practice some form of rotational grazing? Or management-intensive grazing? A corollary question: How has the field been managed until now?
• How much residual mass are you aiming for?
• Is the field part of your home farm or adjacent to it? Or, is it so far away that you would need drones, online video cameras and a fuel-efficient truck to manage it?
• How does the field lie? Does it face north, south, east or west? The direction will influence soil temperatures – such as how early or late the soil will warm up in the spring.
• Water, water: Is the field well-drained, droughty, poorly drained, heavy with clay or just right? Drainage characteristics govern your options for forage species.
• Water, water: Do you have irrigation for this field? Do you need it? If not, when is the dry season?
• Do you have equipment for the renovation? What type? Or, can renovation equipment or personnel be hired in a timely way? This is convenient, but it requires a cash outlay.
• What is growing in this field now? A corollary question: Why is it growing there?
• What weeds are growing there? Is this an important question for you?
• What are the locally popular pasture seed mixes? A tip: Don’t purchase seeds, at least not yet.

Forage possibilities: Now, let’s look at some choices or at least some options. However, recall that forages are just tools. They give us options that can dovetail nicely with our needs and constraints, and if chosen strategically, they can open doors to really good possibilities. We actually have a dazzling array of choices.

I’ll list some of the most basic selections:

• Old standby cool-season (C3) grasses, mostly perennial: orchardgrass, tall fescue (no endophyte or novel endophyte only), meadow fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth brome (often called bromegrass by folks who should know better), timothy, perennial ryegrass and annual ryegrass.
• Specialty forages that are cool-season perennials: chicory, plantain, reed canarygrass, festulolium (short-lived perennial), the prairie grasses (such as 'Matua'), and 'Gala' grazing brome.
• Specialty forages that are cool-season annuals: the entire array of brassicas – from turnips to the great, new hybrid forage varieties – the forage radishes, and all the small grains such as oats, barley and rye.
• Specialty forages that are warm-season annuals: sorghum-sudangrass – and related forage sorghums and sudangrasses – and the millets, teff, corn and crabgrass (improved varieties). Note the new traits in the sorghum family: brown midrib (BMR), brachytic dwarf and photoperiod sensitivity.
• Warm-season (C4) grasses and perennials: bermudagrass, dallisgrass and bahiagrass.
• Legumes that are perennials – long term or short term: alfalfa (obviously), birdsfoot trefoil, white clover, red clover, the sweetclovers, kura clover, alsike clover, sainfoin and sericea lespedeza.
• Legumes that are annuals: many common clovers (crimson, ball, arrowleaf, Persian, rose and berseem), subterranean clover, balansa clover, the various vetches, common and Korean lespedezas and cowpea.
• Good information is available on each of these forages – online and in reference books. Take the time to read about any species that has serious potential for your field. For each species, the devil is in the details.
• Note that we have not listed kudzu, gorse or Scotch broom. Yes, these are all legumes, and they all fix nitrogen. But still, we won’t list them as possible forages, no matter what the internet says.

Whew! This may seem like quite a jumble – so many questions and choices. But let’s step back for a moment and look at the whole picture. First, we established how the one field we’re evaluating fits into the entire farm system and identified that field’s strengths and constraints. Second, we considered how we will use the forage from that field, which helps narrow our species choices. Third, we systematically reviewed a list of possible forages, eliminating some and starring a couple of favorites. Now, we have a short list of possibilities with a fair idea about why we are going to plant them and how we are going to use them.

But, just in case you are not comfortable making these renovation decisions right now, here is a relatively simple fallback position – a practical technique that you can use on nearly any pasture. It will buy you time as you learn more and think about your options.

Fallback option: Plant a pure, thick stand of annual ryegrass (ARG) at maybe twice the recommended seeding rate – use 40-50 pounds per acre. Drill it, broadcast it, roll it in, whatever it takes. Fertilize with lots of nutrients, especially nitrogen. ARG is a very aggressive seed – it comes up quickly, even if it’s broadcast on the soil surface. Once the seed is out, step back and get out of its way. ARG can form a dense sward of exceptionally nutritious forage. It is extremely palatable, responds well to fertilizer, comes up early and quickly and responds well to good grazing management. It’s also an annual plant (hence its name), meaning that it usually will be gone by the next growing season. Therefore, you can plant it for a year and use the intervening time to sharpen your grazing skills and learn about temporary fencing, while producing a high forage yield and excellent animal response. Then it’s gone – although you can repeat the process for another year. Basically, a year in ARG can give you a year of excellent pasture and also a year to think about your options. That way, you’re not locked into a perennial seed choice before you’re ready to make that choice. And, ARG is often one of the least expensive seeds you can buy.

Renovation is a major undertaking. Take your time before doing it. Search the literature. Ask the questions and work through the details.

You’ll end up making sound decisions. In the end, when you stand at the edge of your renovated field and look out over the lush, young growth, your neighbor may ask you, “Why did you choose that forage?” You’ll have a very good answer.