Planting a pasture

Yesterday I planted a pasture. I avoid doing pastures as I have never had a lot of success. 

I live in Western Oregon. It seems to me that all the farming is done elsewhere. There are never good deals on tractors or research on alternative growing methods. The Rodale Institute is PA. When you look up farming information and get excited because the web address is "OSU." You soon find out that the research was done by Ohio State University, NOT Oregon State University.

It is pretty crazy when the catalogue from Great Plains MFG shows a set up just like mine replanting pasture but my experiences have mostly been failures.

There were three problems with this planting job. 

First issue is it is too late in the year for me to have confidence in good seed germination. My experience is that the seed just sets there and rots. If it does come up then it frost heaves out of the ground.

Second problem is that this is an old Turf-type Fescue field. Turf fescue has Endophytes bred into the seed which help prevent disease but cause issues with animal health. It was sprayed with glyphosate a couple days ago but there will still be seed sprouting later on. Also, the fescue sod is hard to kill. If there is any sod that is still dormant from summer, it may still come back. (not likely but I have seen it) 

The final issue is that the fescue is planted in 15" rows. The fescue rows have sod which is taller than the bare dirt between the rows. The no-till drill doesn't track well on the ridges. You have a lot of depth control issues. I could compensate if I could plant at an angle to the rows. However, this is an odd shaped field and there are few straight lines.

I suggested several alternatives. First I could no-till Cayuse Oats which will do "okay," winter planted and have a pretty decent hay yield. Take the hay off in late May when the oats are in late bloom. It is a little late for Oats so it would be better to wait until our winter weather break at the beginning of February. This would give time to make sure the fescue was dead.

Second suggestion was to work the ground. This would insure a kill on the fescue and make a smooth field. Again, November is a little late as we are heading into the rainy season.

My customer decided he wanted the pasture planted now and if it didn't come up we would do it again in the spring and he would pay me again.

So I planted.

The field was supposed to be 10 acres. I opted to plant two directions because of the difficulty with the fescue rows. This was not real successful. I picked a good straight line but soon found I was turning around way too frequently. Then I discovered that the field was more like 12 acres.

I got 100lbs of Fawn Fescue, 100lbs of Orchardgrass, and 50lbs of Timothy. The recommendation was 10lbs two directions but I wanted to go a little heavier. The goal was 30lbs total. However, having two acres extra was a problem. I scrounged through my shop for left over part bags, buckets, coffee cans, of any sort of forage grass. I found 25lbs of Kentucky 31, some Kentucky bluegrass of unknown vintage, and 25lbs more lbs of Timothy. I have 25 acres on the counter.

The other issue was fertilizer. I rebuilt my fertilizer applicator system with mixed results. I thought I had a system that I could easily agitate my fertilizer. This is handy if you have crappy 10-34 from Valley Ag or if you are mixing 32 and 10-34 as they tend to separate overnight. I needed the agitation as I was adding a Compost Tea inoculant called Recharge. 

My friend has worked with these folks, CatalyistBioAmendments. They are in Colorado and seem less sketchy. I need to email them and see if they offer a similar seed starter. I had a picture showing how one side of the drill came up faster due to the inoculant but it doesn't show up well on a computer screen.

Compost tea additive is just a bit hard on the filters

My agitation comes from the bypass which is how I regulate fertilizer pressure. The servo valve directs flow back into the tank instead of the usual method of restricting flow to the boom. There is a three-way valve on the boom which was made by Texas Industrial. A TIR.2401 three-way valve. This valve is now discontinued and I can't find instructions or a parts breakdown. It used to direct flow back into the tank when the fertilizer boom was shut off. Now it mostly just sticks open so if I want agitation I have to slowly reduce speed so the bypass directs all the flow back into the tank. It is a bit frustrating. A new high quality valve is like $400.

But I digress...

I mixed the compost tea inoculant in with the 10-34 fertilizer as this puts the mixture right down with the seed and set the Micro-trak Spraymate II at 8 gallons per acre. Everything was calculated for 10 acres and I foolishly mixed up very close to the correct amount. After making the first pass I had to go back home and mix up a second batch to make sure I came out correctly at 24 acres.

Then it started to get dark...

It was impossible to see anything and the GPS didn't work as the field had multiple slopes. The second trip I put down my marker, put the 2-155 in fifth over and ran at 7 mph. It took me 3 hours to do the first pass and an hour to do the second pass.