Mulching that pasture has benefits!

I recently posted this onto the FaceBook page for my homestead that I have started. I just copied it and am paying it here…. To open them doors of thought that anyone passing by may want to look inside via looking it up online.

“ We are now officially mulching our pastures!

Letting the grasses grow big, woody, and seedy is a great thing on a great many levels.

The grasses, clovers, and Forbes will grow drastically larger and deeper root systems. Enabling them to reach more neutrients that they need to grow healthy PLUS enabling them to be able to reach all of the deeper water when things get hot/dry.

The soil beneath them will be a good 50F cooler on the mega hot days and remain much more moist.

The soil life like worms, dung beetles, and fungi will explode in population in that environment after it reaches a tipping point. Which will drastically change that soil structure, increase fertilization (they move and break down nutrients), and the ability of the soil to absorb major rain evens.

Plant roots will be able to travel further at a faster rate in my heavy clay soil.

Soil PH will transform from acidic to neutral since worm poo is PH neutral.

The plants themselves will need less water too in that cooler soil and will grow further into the summer.

Look at the grass in the last pic. It was bush hogged a month ago. The mulch is almost gone already. I just took the cows off of it a week ago. That grass is going to now be allowed to get waist high going into Winter. Those cultivars (orchard, Timothy, and fescue) are supposed to be dormant this time of year during the hot weather but they are not.

I will continue to roatate the animals on it throughout the Winter. I may be able to go a few more months without feeding hay. Some folks in my region go 300 days without feeding hay and a very few never do. Aka… 365 grazing.

I will add ryegrass seed to the equation to try and get there. I am still a few years out from reaching the potential of working with nature.”

Great points. It is often taken for granted that a pasture is just a polyculture of livestock-edible plants, as such the same principles that apply to permaculture gardening apply to it.

Recently I was taken aback when I heard from an advocate of bale grazing that the main advantage of it is not nutrient distribution but rather water retention from the residue. This is because water is more often than not the bottleneck in boosting microbial activity, during summer especially, which is what really drives nutrient cycling.

In winter as well a mulch layer will insulate the soil from cold spells, and during thaws from compaction.

This is also one of the main points of mob grazing. Many university forage "experts" will claim that mob grazing is pointless because it merely results in more forage being trampled than eaten. But they don't consider the more long-term impact of that trampled forage; they are hyper-focused on forage utilization. Same thing with bale grazing. When one sees forage residue as an investment in pasture health, there is no such thing as wastage, so long as it's left where it's most needed.

Although rotational grazing is great for keeping forage in its vegetative stage, I think it's best to let the desirable plants go to seed at some point and mob graze (or at least mow) so it can re-seed itself and leave a nice mulch to protect the soil. Especially when a pasture becomes healthy enough that microbial activity increases, then it becomes necessary to regularly regenerate that thatch layer. Plus the seeds will produce plants that are adapted to local conditions.

When I see farmers take hay off of poor pasture that has barely grown, it makes me wonder if they wouldn't be much better off just mowing it, and in the winter bale grazing on it.

@ Nate

All stated items are a 100% agreement in my book. Very good points and points of views. Thank you for sharing them!

Nature wastes NOTHING. “Wasted” grass is simply feeding and creating habitat for the soil-food-web to form and grow. That added thatch layer is doing much more than the amazing things you already stated… about creating higher moisture for microbes and enabling the grasses to reseed themselves for sustainability.

1) It  is also cooling the soil during the hot part of the summer. Enabling those youngster grasses (even my ryegrass I lightly threw on top is goig great!) to make progress. When the soil is cooler… the plants themselves are cooler too… which causes them to need less water and to be able to grow still further into the hot season for the cool season grasses.

2) Thatch creates an explosion in the worm population… which DRASTICALLY increases drainage out there… adds more to water retention both through that better drainage and worm poo both. Adds drastically to the mineralization of the soil via worm poo. And now the roots of the grasses can easily penetrate and expand deep into the soil and reach that water and cooler temps they need. Oh, and worm poo is PH neutral too!!! Which is a Major bonus to those who seek to not need to spread lime every few years. Then there is the whole… creating an Aerobic soil condition through all of that added drainage… that enables aerobic bacteria and fungal colonies to form and bloom. That further increase nutrition and move water/nutrients for the plants.

Then BOOM… you pasture will be popping without as much input. Getting better every year.


Having neutral PH, higher soil nutrition, great water retention, better soil temps, aerobic soil (even in my dense clay), and ease of root spreading… are the end game and the goal.

Edit: I just went back and read my first post. Most of that was in there. lol Sorry for the double post of info. It’s 6AM now… still drinking coffee. 😂

Quite fortuitously I have first experienced, and then subsequently had explained to me, how mulching pasture triggers a biological process that enhances the entire landscape.
My learning experience began with a dense sward of tall dry Cocksfoot under a Pink Gum woodland. In order to reduce a very serious fire hazard I mowed the grass in late spring. This resulted in having short dry stubble along with a thatch of dry straw.
Next year, being a bit better organised, I mowed the same site when the grass was still green earlier in spring. To my surprise the grass just kept on growing, necessitating further mowing even in summer. The Pink Gum trees that had been affected by severe tree dieback, now began to grow with a renewed vigour.
When attending a forestry field day, I asked a very knowledgeable speaker what I had done to achieve such favourable results. "The answer is simple. When you mowed the green grass you were actually feeding saprophytic fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with root associated mychorrhizal fungi. Come summer, when the topsoil begins to dry, this fungal association generates hydraulic pressure in the subsoil to lift moisture back to the topsoil.
I currently have five locations of native woodland which I "irrigate" in summer by the above process, and my soil now has an organic carbon content of 10%.
However the same result is not so easily obtained in my open pastures. My conclusion is that away from the trees,
1. There is no shade to help retain moisture in the mulched grass to thereby facilitate digestion by saprophytic fungi.
2. With no tree roots I am now dependent on other plant species to harbour mychorrhizal fungi.
But with perseverance I am learning that something like a flail mower can minimise aeration of the finely mulched grass while hygroscopic additives like molasses can also help retain moisture, thereby ensuring optimum digestion.
This past very dry summer I had my first open paddock sustain a cover of green grass. Please note though that I have a retired property with no gazing stock.

John Stafford

Hi John, and welcome. That's great info...i was completely unaware of the relationship between saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi. It's also interesting to see the interplay between pasture and trees, and how the edge effect increases productivity. Have you thought about planting more trees into your open paddocks?

Phil Stevens wrote:Hi John, and welcome. That's great info...i was completely unaware of the relationship between saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi. It's also interesting to see the interplay between pasture and trees, and how the edge effect increases productivity. Have you thought about planting more trees into your open paddocks?

Hi Phil, yes spending hours on the tractor mowing grass provides ample time for contemplation. However for an elderly over ripe 85 year old, adding further trees to my 22ha property is beyond both my physical and financial capacity. Further more, although my Fendt 380GTA Tool Carrier with its front mounted twin rotor slasher is a breeze to drive over open paddocks, it is not much chop when trying to dodge numerous trees. This leaves me with herbaceous plants as the sole means of hosting mychorrhizal fungi (MF).

I note that successful advocates of regenerative farming consistently promote plant diversity as the core ingredient to their success without being able to explain why this is so. Could it be that it is biodiversity that guarantees at least some means of hosting MF. In my case a known host in Cats Ear (Hypochaeris) is a regular contributor to the diversity of my pastures. (This is my regular defence to neighbours who fail to appreciate my carpet of yellow flowers).