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Interesting idea for seeding pastures

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Kato

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We heard something the other day we've never heard of before, but would be interested in knowing if anyone here has tried it. A local fellow says he puts forage seed (trefoil to be exact), in his cattle mineral. Apparently the seed passes right through the cattle, and back onto the pasture. He says he's been doing it for years, and it works like a charm. It works best though in a rotational system where the cattle are concentrated in smaller areas.

This sounds like it just may be crazy enough to work. Anyone else heard of it?

Cowzilla might have, because he knows the guy. 8)
 
Guys have been doing that here for years-it can help get clovers and such into land that's too rough or wet to seed. I sprinkle it around the salt tubs too.
 
Kato, this works well. I think it works better if you harrow the pasture a bit to disperse the seed.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Guys have been doing that here for years-it can help get clovers and such into land that's too rough or wet to seed. I sprinkle it around the salt tubs too.
Click to expand...

NR, any idea what kind of germination rate? Grasses generally need at least a little cover to germinate properly, but they should be plenty well "covered" by the time they make it out the cow. And well fertilized too.

I've got some old timothy pasture that I need to get a couple more years out of and was thinking about trefoil, but didn't want to roll into that hard old ground with my drill. Right now would be ideal timing since its so wet and the cattle are really churning up the ground.

Rod
 
I wouldn't bet that this is an efficient method of seeding pastures. White clover may be ideal for it (because of all the hard seed) but what about the bacterium inoculation needed to make it emerge and grow properly?

I bet if he took the same seed and slung it out with a cyclone spreader he would have gotten better results. Plus he would have been able to pick and choose the areas that need seeding.
 
I rolled a bunch of white clover a week or so ago that is full of mature seed. I am hoping that feeding this hay will help establish white clover in my pastures. I had some luck with red clover seeding this way last year but I think it all got grazed down before it could get started good.
Anyway, the white clover and Bermuda grass mix will make good feed this winter even if the clover does not take hold.
 
Read my post again -guys use this to get seed into areas where only cows go and horses fear to tred lol. Most guys just buy some cheap clover seed and use that-I've seen lots of legume and grass volounteer into pastures where guys have fed hay. A good read on this subject -is the 'One Straw Revolution' by a Chinese guy. It's a way to get somew diversity into a pasture without spending an arm and a leg.
 
We have found feeding mature hay works the best when wanting grass to reseed. Of course the more mature hay has more seed heads.

In W. Montana we dozed a trail through the brush for a fence. Of course
the blade left bare ground on both sides. We fed grass hay there that
winter and the next year we had a wonderful stand of grass. It looked
like a lawn. Not even one bare spot.

We have even managed to do that here in some bad areas where
there wasn't much grass. Our hay is mostly crested but it sure
worked. Mr. FH particularly picked out some bad type ground to feed on and we have grass growing there now.
 
I have feed trefoil through the mineral for years. . . works best in our country in early spring and late fall. . . Older seed (more hard seed) works the best. I have tried clovers and they do not seem to work as well. I believe the trefoil seed is hard enought to pass through, whereas a lot of the clover gets digested. Trefoil responds well to a little extra fertilizer and my belief is i get a better stand letting the cows sling it than putting it on with a seeder with no fertilizer (I have tried that as well). In addition, the "cow pie" leaves the trefoil a spot to get established before the competition plants put the pressure on.

Another tip my grandaddy taught me is to put a couple of coffee cans of seed on top of each load of manure. I have seeded a number of clay hills with this method in the early spring. A light harrowing after spreading the fertilizer and seed seems to help.
 
I have a couple of irrigated hay fields where their is some poor drainage areas or where water stands too long in the drainage area and kills out the alfalfa and most grasses...I try to get Garrison Foxtail started in these areas- and was having little luck either with a drill or broadcasting.....

I found the easiest way was to trade some Garrison bales from a neighbor and feed these bales in the winter in the areas I wanted to grow Garrison- with the cows trambling over it and driving it down thru the snowcover, I ended up with a pretty good catch on the Garrison which just keeps expanding....
 
When I started with very poor land, we fed mature hay at strategic points which resulted in good cover of the improved varieties over the first five years. The combination of seeded hay and rotational grazing reversed the Acacia encroachment and improved the grazing mass and quality beyond all expectations, despite a three year drought after the first two years.
 
Faster horses said:
Alfalfa, too, Jinglebob?

That's really good. I don't think we have had alfalfa seeded this way.
Anything in particular you did to get the alfalfa started?
Click to expand...

It's the old original that came over years ago and it just keeps getting scattered more and more from cows grazing it when it has seed on it. It's not too thick and I don't think we've ever had any cows suffer ill effects from grazing while it has seed on it. But it's more of a wild plant and probably doesn't put that much seed on, when it seeds.

Dad always saved second cutting for seed until he saw that it wasn't setting on too well and then we hayed it. He planted lots of alfalfa that way, where we winter cows along a creek.

Someone on here mentioned mixing flacata alfalfa with your salt or mineral to get it scattered out. One thing about alfalfa, it likes hard ground and it has a hard coating.

And also, if it wants to grow, you can't kill it and if it doesn't , you can't make it grow! :wink:

I've always wanted to scatter yellow blossom clover seed every year as it's cheap seed and makes lots of feed. Just never have got it done yet.
 
We fed crested wheat grass bales to the cows out in the field last winter with the bale shredder now this year before I seeded it to oats I had to spray the field with Round up there was an excellent crop of grass coming where we fed the cows. :roll:
 
WE have so much volunteer barley and oats and cereal rye from cows eating it standing or in hay that we have certain areas that look like little 100 dq foot annual pastures, lol. When we feed corn it is is even stranger, corn growing all over your pastures, stuff does real well if you can give the pasture some rest... In a nice wet year I think we have had 2 foot tall corn growing in a pasture...


I would thin digestion would be bad for a lot of seeds but a good percentage obviously passes thourgh. I would imagine the hard seeds might even benifit a bit from the process but I have an awful active imagination...


We have vernal alfalfa all over the place on this farm. Sides of roads, pastuires and crop fields. It is almost an invasive species, anytime the dirt gets torn up, uip comes the alfalfa )Along with pigweed, ragweed, lambsquarters and about anything else you can imagine.)
 
Kato said:
We heard something the other day we've never heard of before, but would be interested in knowing if anyone here has tried it. A local fellow says he puts forage seed (trefoil to be exact), in his cattle mineral. Apparently the seed passes right through the cattle, and back onto the pasture. He says he's been doing it for years, and it works like a charm. It works best though in a rotational system where the cattle are concentrated in smaller areas.

This sounds like it just may be crazy enough to work. Anyone else heard of it?

Cowzilla might have, because he knows the guy. 8)
Click to expand...
Kato I have not tryed the seed in the mineral trick but did sprinkle Tall fescue into the bottom of the manure spreader last fall. Did get some new growth but it would have been better if it had a few showers earlier this spring. Does anybody know the cost of Trefoil?
 

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