Pastures that have good quality plants will provide the best grazing for horses, and will provide good ground cover, which will help protect the soil from erosion. Without good pasture management, most pastures tend to deteriorate over time and become weedy where horses are grazed.
Weedy pastures provide relatively poor feed for horses. Weeds can also present risks because some weeds (e.g. Salvation Jane) are toxic to horses. Weedy pastures also tend to die off quickly in spring and don’t leave much ground cover through summer-autumn. Bare patches in grazing paddocks can increase the risk of horses getting sand colic.
Good quality pastures for horse grazing should ideally consist of:
- 70% - 80% desirable pasture grasses,
- 70% - 80% desirable pasture grasses,
- less than 10% weed species (no proclaimed weeds should be present).
Legumes:
Example of legume plants in pastures are subclover, medic, and lucerne. Legumes get nitrogen from the air by ‘fixing’ nitrogen in special nodules in their roots. Legumes growing in pastures help maintain good nitrogen in the soil, so less nitrogen fertiliser needs to be applied.
Legumes in pastures also provide nutritious feed for grazing animals.
Steps to achieve best practice:
The following steps are suggested:-
Step 1
Identify the amount of desirable pasture plants and weeds present in your pastures. You can get assistance for pasture species identification and pasture management from rural consultants and advisers. If your pastures have reasonable numbers of desirable pasture plants, but there is room for improvement, good pasture management may be enough to get the right pasture composition, i.e. providing adequate soil fertility and correct grazing management - see steps 2 and 3.
If your pastures are mainly weeds and/or annual species, you will probably have to consider re-seeding pastures (step 4) as well as steps 2 and 3.
Step 2
Assess soil fertility and soil pH levels. Desirable pasture plants need reasonably good soil fertility levels as well as a soil pH that is not strongly acidic.
- Undertake regular (e.g. every few years) soil tests for fertility and pH. Advice and assistance for soil testing is available from departments of agriculture, rural merchandise outlets, rural consultants and fertiliser companies.
- Apply fertiliser or lime based on soil test results. Fertiliser is usually applied in April-May, and lime can be applied at any time of the year that you have access to paddocks. Pastures usually need ‘maintenance’ dressings of fertiliser each season to maintain good condition.
Step 3
Make sure that pastures are grazed evenly and not overgrazed. If pastures are overgrazed or bare patches develop, this makes it easy for weeds to proliferate.
- Consider rotational grazing of pastures. This means putting horses in a paddock only for a certain period, then moving them to another paddock to spell the pasture. For best results, grazing should start when pastures grow to 10- 15 cm height, then should be spelled when the pasture is 3-5 cm high. Grazing below 3 cm height weakens perennial grasses, and ground cover levels may get too low. Rotational grazing is easier if there are many smaller paddocks on the property rather than a few large paddocks.
- Manage excess manure in grazing paddocks (see Management of Manure) so horses graze pastures evenly and the pasture doesn’t become rank in patches.
- Slash excessively tall pasture or cut for hay.
- Rotate the position of feeding areas and troughs so they are always on well-covered ground.
- Consider the option of cross grazing with cattle or sheep at times when pasture growth becomes uneven.
Step 4
Consider re-seeding pastures with recommended pasture seed mixes. You can get assistance for choosing pasture seed mixes to best suit your property, and pasture sowing and management advice from rural consultants and advisers. Try to include perennial pasture species and legume species that are suited to your area. In the Mount Lofty Ranges, for example, species that can be considered include phalaris, cocksfoot, kikuyu and perennial rye grass combined with a sub-clover. Within these species, there are different varieties suited to particular rainfall zones and soil types. It is recommended to resow pastures with 20 perennial pasture grass plants per square metre plus 60 subclover plants per square metre.
- If possible, re-seed pastures by ‘direct drilling’, especially on any ground that may be at risk of soil erosion. Direct drilling is where the seed is sown along with fertiliser into unworked ground. Usually, direct drill seeding implements are designed to cut a slot just along the row where the seed is sown, and leave the soil between the rows unworked. Usually a knockdown herbicide is applied to the old pasture before it is re-seeded.
- If your pastures only lack perennial grass plants or legume plants, it may be possible to just oversow either of these into your pasture, rather than completely re-seeding the pasture.
- Note that horses will need to be excluded from re-seeded paddocks for most of the first year. It may be more manageable to re-seed only some paddocks each year.
- On newly-sown pastures, be prepared to control red-legged earth mite otherwise this pest can quickly destroy the pasture.
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