“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.,” Ecc 3: 1 - 2.
In general pastures cycle through three distinct phases throughout the year. Phase I (initial or establishment phase) is when plants are young and fragile and trying to develop a root system. This occurs when either the pasture has just been planted or after the first rains of the season when new seedlings come up.
Like a small start-up company, it has very few resources stored up for tough times and is struggling for survival.Phase II (rapid growth phase) is when the plants are still young but have established and are growing like crazy.This is the time when sitting around and watching the grass grow is an extreme sport.
It’s also the time when you discover that your mower needed servicing last month. The plants have got survival under control and are now photosynthesising rapidly, producing a lot of feed value.
Early summer, as long as the rains are here, is the time when this phase is most obvious. Phase III (maturity) occurs when the plants have grown to a full size and are setting seed. Most of their energy goes towards the seeds so that the next generation gets a good start.Towards the end of this phase the plant is virtually dead with full ripe seeds.
If we were to compare these three phases to ourselves, phase I would be as babies or toddlers getting a start on life; phase II would be later childhood and adolescence when we change shoe sizes every second month and eat our parents out of house and home.
(Incidentally, if anyone were to consider cannibalism, this is when we’d be the best eating). After that, we are left going to seed: phase III. So what does this mean for getting the best nutrition out of our pastures?
While phase I involves high quality food, (in fact even we eat lucerne at phase I as alfalfa sprouts), the quantity is not there. A further problem is that grazing at this stage is likely to kill the young plants. At this stage it is best to rest the pasture and provide alternative feed sources to animals.
Phase III has the opposite problem in that the quantity is there but the quality isn’t. All of the nutrition’s is being sucked out of the plant and into the seeds, eventually leaving behind empty cellulose fibre.
Cattle and other ruminants can make better use of this than horses as long as a protein source is provided due to the bacteria in their stomach (rumen). As protein is the first nutrient to decline in phase III, supplementing with a high protein feed (eg: pure lucerne) would be most appropriate.
It is phase II that provides the quality feed in sufficient quantity.
Can we do anything to keep that pasture in phase II?Yes. By grazing off or mowing the pastures we can delay the setting of seed, keeping it in phase II.
Avoid overgrazing though or the pasture can be pushed right back to phase I. You may notice in some paddocks that there are coarse clumps of older grasses interspersed with short cropped grasses that the animals always seem to pick on.
The rank, older grasses are in phase III and therefore are left alone, while the other grasses, which are fresher and sweeter are eaten right back to phase I where they are struggling to survive. The solution here is to mow or burn the older clumps and let the paddock rest occasionally to let the overgrazed grasses recover.
Towards the end of the summer/autumn growing period, many pasture species have a last effort at reaching maturity and often set seed even if not fully grown. This should be allowed, to encourage a thicker, more resilient pasture in the following year. I
In summary, we should rest pastures in phase I, aim to keep pastures in phase II for as long as possible and allow phase III to occur at the end of the growing season.
We should also be mindful of when pastures may or may not be providing everything an animal needs.
Like a small start-up company, it has very few resources stored up for tough times and is struggling for survival.Phase II (rapid growth phase) is when the plants are still young but have established and are growing like crazy.This is the time when sitting around and watching the grass grow is an extreme sport.
It’s also the time when you discover that your mower needed servicing last month. The plants have got survival under control and are now photosynthesising rapidly, producing a lot of feed value.
Early summer, as long as the rains are here, is the time when this phase is most obvious. Phase III (maturity) occurs when the plants have grown to a full size and are setting seed. Most of their energy goes towards the seeds so that the next generation gets a good start.Towards the end of this phase the plant is virtually dead with full ripe seeds.
If we were to compare these three phases to ourselves, phase I would be as babies or toddlers getting a start on life; phase II would be later childhood and adolescence when we change shoe sizes every second month and eat our parents out of house and home.
(Incidentally, if anyone were to consider cannibalism, this is when we’d be the best eating). After that, we are left going to seed: phase III. So what does this mean for getting the best nutrition out of our pastures?
While phase I involves high quality food, (in fact even we eat lucerne at phase I as alfalfa sprouts), the quantity is not there. A further problem is that grazing at this stage is likely to kill the young plants. At this stage it is best to rest the pasture and provide alternative feed sources to animals.
Phase III has the opposite problem in that the quantity is there but the quality isn’t. All of the nutrition’s is being sucked out of the plant and into the seeds, eventually leaving behind empty cellulose fibre.
Cattle and other ruminants can make better use of this than horses as long as a protein source is provided due to the bacteria in their stomach (rumen). As protein is the first nutrient to decline in phase III, supplementing with a high protein feed (eg: pure lucerne) would be most appropriate.
It is phase II that provides the quality feed in sufficient quantity.
Can we do anything to keep that pasture in phase II?Yes. By grazing off or mowing the pastures we can delay the setting of seed, keeping it in phase II.
Avoid overgrazing though or the pasture can be pushed right back to phase I. You may notice in some paddocks that there are coarse clumps of older grasses interspersed with short cropped grasses that the animals always seem to pick on.
The rank, older grasses are in phase III and therefore are left alone, while the other grasses, which are fresher and sweeter are eaten right back to phase I where they are struggling to survive. The solution here is to mow or burn the older clumps and let the paddock rest occasionally to let the overgrazed grasses recover.
Towards the end of the summer/autumn growing period, many pasture species have a last effort at reaching maturity and often set seed even if not fully grown. This should be allowed, to encourage a thicker, more resilient pasture in the following year. I
In summary, we should rest pastures in phase I, aim to keep pastures in phase II for as long as possible and allow phase III to occur at the end of the growing season.
We should also be mindful of when pastures may or may not be providing everything an animal needs.
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