How to best utilize your pasture pt. 2

By Gary Sliworsky
OMAF/MRA Rep.

Last week’s article addressed factors affecting utilization of pasture and ways to improve that utilization. Following is part two of the article on utilizing your pasture, from Jack Kyle, Grazier Specialist, OMAF/MRA.
Number of Paddocks and Frequency of Moves
Factors that influence pasture utilization are:
· the number of paddocks, and
· the frequency of moves.
From the Purdue Extension Forage Field Guide:
·continuously grazed pasture will result in 40% utilization of the forage
·a 4 paddock system will result in 45% utilization
·an 8 paddock system will have about 60% utilization
·a 12 paddock system will have about 65% utilization
·moving to a 24+ paddock system will bring the utilization rate up to about 75%.
This is a huge increase in productivity of your pastures, almost doubling it. Increasing the number of paddocks allows you to increase the frequency of moves to fresh pasture.
From the Purdue Extension Forage Field Guide:
·moving every 3 days to fresh pasture will give a 70% utilization rate,
·moving every 7 days reduces the pasture utilization rate to 50%, and
·14 day moves results in only 40% utilization of the pasture.
The number of paddocks and frequency of moves go together. More paddocks allow for more frequent moves. This results in a longer rest period for the grass to recover from the previous grazing, and more growth of fresh grass for the next grazing.
Take Half and Leave Half
These are seasonal utilization rates. At each grazing pass, the best results are achieved when you have the livestock remove about 50% of the available forage to allow the plant to quickly recover and re-grow. There is minimal impact on the root system when grazing about 50% of the top growth, but when more than 50% is removed the impact on the roots is much more significant.
The more paddocks you can organize for each group of livestock, and the more frequent the moves to a fresh paddock, the better the performance you will see from your pastures.

Dates to Remember
August 15, 16, 17 – Rainy River Valley Agricultural Society Fair, Emo