When should I mow the pasture?

So, I have a (currently unused) pasture I am trying to improve for next year, though the only tool at my disposal is mowing.

I mowed it in twice in June for the first time in 5+ years - the first time to knock down the waist-high grass, and a second time to knock down the milkweed that sprung up instead.

It's now been three weeks since I last mowed and thanks to the amount of rain, it's back up to boot high. I have lots of poison parsnip and milkweed just starting to go into bloom, so I want to knock them down before they set seed. However, I'm probably about 2 weeks early for the thistles to bolt and go to flower.

Should I mow it now and knock back the poison parsnip and milkweed, and just accept that I'll miss the thistles this year? Or should I wait?

Any thoughts?

If you are trying to improve that space as pasture you want to never let anything unwanted go to seed heads.
I mow biweekly when I am working on improving a pasture space.

Once you get the pasture to the grasses and plants you want growing there, then you can only mow twice a year for hay making.
One thing to understand about pasture is that it will grow better grass when it is mowed down more frequently.
The next thing to understand about grass is that the taller it has grown, the taller you have to cut it, if you let grasses go to knee high then cut it off at two inches tall, you only have stalks standing and nothing to shade the weed seeds to keep them from sprouting.

I don't let a hay field get super tall, I like to cut hay at 6 to 8 inches, the food is better for the animals that way, better nutrition and less stalky non palatable to the animals.

Redhawk

I recommend you read some of Joel Salatin's books (polyface farms) and use some of his hard earned wisdom as a starting point. He is all about pasture and has some excellent info on the subject.

It sounds like you could stand to start with some goats, chickens, turkeys, and possibly some other grazers on your pasture, then do a little weeding followed by  some very basic seeding. Animals can and will do most of the work for you. Once the pasture has been corrected, you can then manage it with animal rotations and cutting hay for wintering your livestock.

But Salatin should definitely be your first step in your desired direction. Pastures are his life long bread and butter and he has a ton of experience renting neglected pastures and fixing them quick, fast, and cheaply. (He has a ton of video and material you can find online as well). His insights on letting the land determine your fencing is common sense brilliant, as is his use of portable electric fencing to get the job done. That same common sense land segregation translates perfectly to mowing hay. Meditate on his wisdom a few days while considering how to apply it to your world and you will have a very high chance of pitfall avoidance and first time success.


Good Luck,


-Paul-

You do need to be carefull on how to mow pasture. If you mow too often and too short you can actually hurt the grass also depending on the hieght of the growth points of forages and legumes vs. grass, ie. warm or cool season grasses. Forages should not be mowed between certain dates in the fall before dormancy as well depending on you growing zone. In your case it may make sense to do some mowing in order to establish more perennial and less annual and bi-annual vegetaion but in general you should not really need to mow pasture as often as you are, the idea is that the livestock should be harvesting the forage and not having to use any equipment and fuel to cut forage. I have over a couple hundred acres of pasture and I don't mow any of it. However, depends on where you live. I went to a forage tour in Louisiana and they do annual mowing to control invasive vegetation that I do not have here. What is the poison parsnip? - is that the same thing as cows parsnip? I have cows parsnip at one farm and I always suspected I may have had issues with it.

Hi Brian,

It sounds like you have the right idea about strategic mowing, mowing with particular objectives rather than on a specific predetermined schedule.  I am not sure I understand the thistle situation, do you WANT the thistles?  If not, mowing them earlier than you think is optimum for their control might be OK.  Some thistles have enough moisture in their tissue that they can ripen their seeds after being cut.  

I wonder if you have any friends or neighbors with herbivores they would like to bring over for some free feed.  Mowing is a tool I use to cut the undesireables after the goats have eaten what they want.  It is better than letting them go unchecked....... but I do like it better when the plant material gets chewed and pulverized, and the soil inoculated with those millions of microbes.  


When you DO mow it, how short do you mow?  I try to leave mine at about 6 inches, leaving plenty of plant material to regenerate from...    Well, I leave what I want to encourage as high as possible, and if possible cut the undesirables as close to the ground as possible.  

Keep us posted!

Here is what I did.

I'm in Southern WV, I have a 7 acre pasture used for 50+ years as a hay field. I did nothing to the field for almost a year.(and I mean nothing, I barely even walked in it)  Just after the last snowfall I started to trim the plants of height, then I mowed just before the spring growth started strong.

I had some of the best hay. I also waited till the hay went to seed before the bailed it this year. It really improved my field.

The huge milk weed patches are gone, and the clover is thicker then before. I do have a few of small area were some Rushs are now, but I blame the wet season for those.

cheers

-Justyn

I strategically mow different areas at different times according to what is growing there.  I use a mix of tools from scytes to the riding mower and different heights according to the objective.  Trying to cut the daisies off at the roots, Good grass at 4" , vetch and alfalfa after it has set seed with the scythe and drag the mass over areas I want reseeded.  Cut the grass just above the strawberry leaves  for the june fruiting. After the seed heads are mature on the grass and flax that I want to propagate I mow those patches with the riding mower which would not be possible when green and it spreads the seed.
The last use of the field for animals was horses and my sister was not keeping ahead of the daisies so they are a problem.  Mowing with the scythe allows me to observe the land closely and make a mowing plan for the year. Not having grazing animals on the farm now the grass I mow with the scythe is used to mulch gardens and trees and berries.

How big is the area?

If the unwanted plants are relatively sparse you might find that a few hours of hand weeding gets the job done. We have 6 acres of pasture, which had a thistle problem. I took a fiskars thistle puller out with me and did ten minutes or so pulling each time I want out there. The thistle problem was gone in a few months.

Now that you mention it, I once freed a pasture of "yellow star thistle"by weeding.  And the seedling looks very different from the adult plant, which got me plenty of opposition from the folks who thought I did not know what I was doing.  Andsince yellow star thistle is one which ripens its seeds even afterthe plant has been pulled, recognizing the plant in its early stages was crucial.

You can also add tallgrass prairie seed assortment to choke out nearly everything else. I believe I found it at seed saver's exchange, but don't quote me.

Gabe Brown is a no plow farmer in North Dakota when his operation freezes he goes on speaking tours and youtube is full of his talks below is a link to the rabbit hole.
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7oxMTLzlP-4

Brian Vraken wrote:So, I have a (currently unused) pasture I am trying to improve for next year, though the only tool at my disposal is mowing.

I know you said only mowing, but someone should point out that the best way to reduce weeds is to improve the soil and grass. Traditional ranchers and hay growers do that with fertilizer. But my plan is to use GroPal at 10-40 oz per acre according to the friendly folks at http://seamineralsolutions.com/ who answered my questions about improving pastures.

Ray Moses wrote:You do need to be carefull on how to mow pasture. If you mow too often and too short you can actually hurt the grass also depending on the hieght of the growth points of forages and legumes vs. grass, ie. warm or cool season grasses.

I saved some good tips on growing year round pasture and how to mow I found at http://www.groworganic.com/organic-gardening/articles/how-to-choose-the-right-pasture-seed

I've been talking with my father the last few weeks about the best way to control mares tail as we continue to convert our former crop land to pasture.  Bryant's thoughts above make me think more frequent, high mowing might be desirable while in recovery.

Beau Davidson wrote:I've been talking with my father the last few weeks about the best way to control mares tail as we continue to convert our former crop land to pasture.  Bryant's thoughts above make me think more frequent, high mowing might be desirable while in recovery.

To me, there are a lot of benefits from mowing often.

When we had our homestead we keep the pasture relatively short to keep out the mesquite trees.

The pasture gets the benefit of the cut grass and weeds giving back nutrients.

What are some other benefits?

Hi Beau, did you read C Letellier’s post about mowing, over in the current clay improvement thread?

https://permies.com/t/203631/Improving-clay-soil-cheap

Here’s the link for when that post was on the screen.  I don’t know if that takes you to that post, or just the thread.  Letellier’s post was posted on November 10th of this year.  It’s mostly about mowing.

I am not familiar with mares tail, thought it might be the same as horse tail also called snake grass, or Equisetum, but when I searched it, I found something a lot more likely to be bothersome to you.  An annual in the sunflower family, with dandelion type airborne seeds.  It starts with a basal rosette and can end up 5-7 feet tall.  That could be a real problem!  And recently has developed herbicide resistance.  What follows is about the plant mares tail aka Conyza canadensis, also called Erigeron canadensis.

I wondered if goats or sheep eat it, and searched forage value, and found nothing.  It’s very similar to lettuce, and forage chicory.  It has medicinal uses, and can be eaten as a leafy green.  But goats and sheep may not like it, and if they won’t eat it, it makes no difference how nutritious it is!  If they would eat it, it could be helpful, but they might just eat everything else!

Yikes what a challenge!  I can see why you are considering mowing as one of your primary strategies.  I found multiple mentions that it grows on no till ground.  You probably already knew THAT.

I found reference to the fact that it is easier to control when it’s less than 8 inches tall, but I think they might have been referring to herbicide use.

I think mowing might be just about the only friend you’ve got!  But maybe there are a few things that might make augment the mowing benefits.

I don’t know how much ground you are converting to pasture, what your soil is like, or what else is growing in your future pasture.  My hunch is that two things will make the mares tail go away.  1)  A plant community with a tight web of roots and foliage, a closed canopy leaving no room for mares tail germination.  ( a bit of a problem in that mares tail germinates in fall or spring) .  
2) evolution of the soil to a phase of greater fertility, but that may get not help, because I didn’t see anything saying if preferred poor soil.

So, if I were doing this project along with you and your family, I would be thinking a lot about mowing to promote soil development.  Which is why I referred to Letellier’s post, because that is what happened at their place:  closed canopy of grass, and soil development from dense clay to friable cottage cheese textured soil.

I have heard it said that diversity is to be used as a tool:  don’t do the same process over and over, mix things up, creating diverse conditions which will favor diverse organisms.  Mow it differently…  some variables might be time of day, high or low, and variable times between mowings.

And, cover crops might help.  If you can get a thick stand of buckwheat in place before the mares tail has a chance to germinate, you’ll have less next season.  And if you seeded some perennial forbes and grasses along with annuals like oats in with the cover crop, you might be able to rent your pasture for a time to a neighbor.

If you’re interested in a cover crop design that might make you some cash while you make the conversion, my favorite cover crop people are green cover seed.  And lookie there, they just opened a location in Kansas!  The local representative where I used to live had a no till drill we could rent to plant the cover crop.

https://greencover.com/green-cover-seed-new-kansas-location/

It’s not too off topic is it?  Mowing and mowing allies.  But if you really have a field of Conyza canadensis, getting past that phase would be a high priority!

Best luck!

Brian Vraken wrote:So, I have a (currently unused) pasture I am trying to improve for next year, though the only tool at my disposal is mowing.
I mowed it in twice in June for the first time in 5+ years - the first time to knock down the waist-high grass, and a second time to knock down the milkweed that sprung up instead.
It's now been three weeks since I last mowed and thanks to the amount of rain, it's back up to boot high. I have lots of poison parsnip and milkweed just starting to go into bloom, so I want to knock them down before they set seed. However, I'm probably about 2 weeks early for the thistles to bolt and go to flower.
Should I mow it now and knock back the poison parsnip and milkweed, and just accept that I'll miss the thistles this year? Or should I wait?
Any thoughts?

The only real problem you seem to have to establish a good pasture is that poison parsnip. The furanocoumarin it contains will cause severe burns on people's skin and inside animals who ingest it. The blessing in disguise is that it is a biennial, meaning that in its first year, it grows a basal rosette of leaves and in its second year, it grows tall and flower. It is in that second year that you do not want to encounter it.
In the spring of the second year, start mowing it early, and mow it frequently enough that it never forms a seed head: If it does go to seed, you will have another 4 years+  of treatment as the seed remains viable in the ground for 4 years. If they are few and far between, you might get away with removing it by hand. Just make sure you protect yourself, even when you mow it because the furanocoumarin can get aerosolized.
Burning the pasture is another no-no because just like poison ivy, it will get aerosolized when burned.
Resist the temptation of mowing the pasture to the ground as the worst weeds seem to thrive in that environment and your 'good grasses' can't thrive if mowed too short.

Brian Vraken wrote:So, I have a (currently unused) pasture I am trying to improve for next year, though the only tool at my disposal is mowing.

I mowed it in twice in June for the first time in 5+ years - the first time to knock down the waist-high grass, and a second time to knock down the milkweed that sprung up instead.

It's now been three weeks since I last mowed and thanks to the amount of rain, it's back up to boot high. I have lots of poison parsnip and milkweed just starting to go into bloom, so I want to knock them down before they set seed. However, I'm probably about 2 weeks early for the thistles to bolt and go to flower.

Should I mow it now and knock back the poison parsnip and milkweed, and just accept that I'll miss the thistles this year? Or should I wait?

Any thoughts?

Hi Brian, what’s the present status of your pasture?

Do you have any progress to report, or any wisdom gained to share after almost 6 years?

Leave it as is. Milkweed is the only plant for Monarch butterflies
If you want to use it for pasture only let animals graze for one day per month. They will only eat the top of the plants, trampling some and then allow the plant to rebound quickly.
If you allow the animals to eat most of the plant it will use more of it’s energy to regrow.
See ‘one bite’
If your pasture is large enough it can be divided for grazing rotation. Otherwise the animals must be removed for recovery. Don’t worry about the unwanted plants.
If you have only a couple of animals you can tie them in a different spot each day

"Kiss The Ground" is a documentary  about regenerative agriculture movement. It talks about soil, pasture and  more

Lots of good advice in this thread. If you're mowing to maintain pasture, the best thing you can do is try to mimic the action of grazing animals as much as possible and then apply observation to tweak when, how, and how much you intervene.

I've been trying to get to a typical regenerative mob grazing system where I shift the stock frequently across subdivided paddocks. My aim is to leave behind at least 1/3 of the standing biomass with each grazing (this means that about a third gets consumed and the other third is trampled). Of course, this is merely a rule of thumb and varies with the seasons and pasture growth cycles...right now, on the heels of a wet spring, I've lengthened the rotation a little and we're leaving more behind. With warm and dry conditions in place, this will flip the other way quickly and a month from now I could be moving them every few days to keep them from grazing it down too far. Remember that top growth is correlated with the amount of root mass below the surface, and more roots means more life in the soil.

If you translate this approach to a mowing regime, it would mean lightly topping the pasture fairly frequently rather than cutting it short once or twice a season. If you're using a scythe you can be selective and mow certain patches shorter, ruthlessly decapitate the unwanted stuff, and leave desirable species to flower and set seed. This is harder to do with powered implements, but if you're attentive and careful it's possible. Creating a mosaic of pasture heights will encourage diversity. Mowing shorter allows herbaceous plants to get more sunlight but comes at the cost of drying out the soil more. Leaving things to get tall will favour grasses most of the time and these will shade out things like clover, but also produce more root mass and exudates to feed the soil microbiology.

If your property is set up for it (appropriate fences, shelter, and water) you could arrange to graze someone else's livestock and let them do the work for you. Certain problematic plants are treats to some animals...Coryza canadensis is known as fleabane here and I have discovered that sheep love it, so I don't go looking for them like I did when we ran cattle.

Roger Engstrom wrote:Leave it as is. Milkweed is the only plant for Monarch butterflies
If you want to use it for pasture only let animals graze for one day per month. They will only eat the top of the plants, trampling some and then allow the plant to rebound quickly.
If you allow the animals to eat most of the plant it will use more of it’s energy to regrow.
See ‘one bite’
If your pasture is large enough it can be divided for grazing rotation. Otherwise the animals must be removed for recovery. Don’t worry about the unwanted plants.
If you have only a couple of animals you can tie them in a different spot each day

I agree about leaving the milkweed.  Our world needs all the milkweed we can grow.

Anne Miller wrote:
To me, there are a lot of benefits from mowing often.

When we had our homestead we keep the pasture relatively short to keep out the mesquite trees.

The pasture gets the benefit of the cut grass and weeds giving back nutrients.

What are some other benefits?

I'm not regenerating pasture, but just mowing pathways with my scythe. I think if I leave it too long the grass stems lodge (I think that is the right word for fall over!) and make it much more difficult to mow. For me there is a balance between time to do the mowing (subject to weather conditions being appropriate!) and leaving it so long that the job just gets too hard to do at all.

Nancy Reading wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:
To me, there are a lot of benefits from mowing often.
When we had our homestead we keep the pasture relatively short to keep out the mesquite trees.
The pasture gets the benefit of the cut grass and weeds giving back nutrients.
What are some other benefits?

I'm not regenerating pasture, but just mowing pathways with my scythe. I think if I leave it too long the grass stems lodge (I think that is the right word for fall over!) and make it much more difficult to mow. For me there is a balance between time to do the mowing (subject to weather conditions being appropriate!) and leaving it so long that the job just gets too hard to do at all.

I was looking at the map to figure out where you are: In the North West of Scotland, with beautiful mountains all over It doesn't look like it would be flat enough for a mower. I had to check for the kind of plants found there:
https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/nature-reserves-important-plant-areas/important-plant-areas/south-west-skye
I confess I know very little about what grows there or how to establish a pasture, but with this information, perhaps other permies can help you better.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
I was looking at the map to figure out where you are: In the North West of Scotland, with beautiful mountains all over It doesn't look like it would be flat enough for a mower.

Different parts of Skye have very different terrain - some parts are certainly flat enough for a mower and have (relatively) fertile flat soil. I live in a glaciated valley with a typical 'u' shape - the crofting community was spread along the valley and the relatively flat bottom. My holding was ploughed in the past as it has mostly a quite gentle slope, although I now use a scythe and also a scythe mower to cut the grass.

Grass trackway mowed with scythe on Skye

Sheep are the main cash crop now, as in the cool wet climate grass grows well, as do many things in the long summer days. People buy in feed for the winter, rather than making their own now however. I'm trying to create a growing area and method to grow more food crops myself at the moment (my project thread)

Nancy Reading wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
I was looking at the map to figure out where you are: In the North West of Scotland, with beautiful mountains all over It doesn't look like it would be flat enough for a mower.

Different parts of Skye have very different terrain - some parts are certainly flat enough for a mower and have (relatively) fertile flat soil. I live in a glaciated valley with a typical 'u' shape - the crofting community was spread along the valley and the relatively flat bottom. My holding was ploughed in the past as it has mostly a quite gentle slope, although I now use a scythe and also a scythe mower to cut the grass.

Sheep are the main cash crop now, as in the cool wet climate grass grows well, as do many things in the long summer days. People buy in feed for the winter, rather than making their own now however. I'm trying to create a growing area and method to grow more food crops myself at the moment (my project thread)

So do you have sheep? If not, could you 'rent" mowing sheep? Would it be easy to place a temporary barrier along both sides of the path you want mowed? If you could, that would be a great way to achieve a few goals at once: Feed your sheep or get income from having someone else's sheep doing the maintenance for you, getting the area manured to enrich that soil and clearing these troublesome weeds and simplifying your life by doing less scything? Just a thought. I see that your project is quite involved though...

For many different reasons I don't have sheep or other livestock. It would probably be possible to come up with a moveable enclosure using hurdles for them I suppose, or if I didn't have coppice areas and fruit bushes to be damaged, I could fence off my crop growing areas and undergraze the trees as well. I have actually considered this - I quite like the idea of milking sheep like icelandic, but for me it feels to be not worth the additional complexity and responsibility. At the moment I make use of the hay I cut for mulching around trees, fruit bushes at the track edges and elsewhere.