Alaskan
Herd Master
Is the fescue interspersed with other plants? Or a solid fescue pasture?
Question re: pasture management versus rain slow downs
- Thread starter Nao57
- Start date
Cotton*wood
Loving the herd life
Some of it is mostly solid fescue, but most of it is interspersed with other things, but things that disappear in the winter, like the dreaded serecea lespedeza, purple clover, milkweed, rudbeckias, etc. Does that matter? I've read that the endophyte toxin is somewhat neutralized in the winter.
Alaskan
Herd Master
Well.... if it is solid fescue, then no reason not to hire someone to come over and rip it out. But remember, because of the runners you need to disc it or what have you at least twice.
Get it ripped out and plant it in something better.
Baymule
Herd Master
Why dreaded serecia lespedeza? It’s a natural wormer.
Bruce
Herd Master
Sounds like you want to burn the entire field, disc it a few times, cover it with black plastic for a year and start over 
Alaskan
Herd Master
Fescue isn't that bad.... but your suggestion is an excellent option!Sounds like you want to burn the entire field, disc it a few times, cover it with black plastic for a year and start over
Guaranteed success!!
Bruce
Herd Master
Now, where does one get a piece of black plastic that is an acre in size?
Cotton*wood
Loving the herd life
Well...it's listed as a noxious weed in Kansas, and if someone turns you in to the county (which has been known to happen), you can be fined $100/day that you're not addressing the issue. It's incredibly difficult to eradicate--impossible by burning, grazing, mowing, or any other non-chemical means. It has taproots that go down down down, and any bit of it left will regrow the plant. Seeds are said to be viable over 40 years in the soil (but that's true of a lot of things.). It seems really unfair to list something as a noxious weed which the USDA introduced in the first place. But there you have it.
And yes, the sheep will readily eat it when it's young and succulent, but then it grows tall and bushy, and turns woody, and if there's nothing else to eat, they'll strip off some of the little leaves, but it's a lot of work for not much return. And when it's tall and bushy (and when millions of seedlings germinate), it crowds out anything else.
When we bought our farm a little less than 2 years ago, we probably had about 4 acres of solid lezpedeza. We hand sprayed a couple acres the first summer, and then didn't have time this summer, so just kept it mowed so it wouldn't go to seed. Interestingly enough, the places where hedge parsley (and all of its million little burs that stuck all over the lambs' woolly coats) grew thick and tall where there had been lezpedeza the year before (yes, progressions of weeds, I know), no lezpedeza seeds germinated (or if they did, they promptly died from lack of sun). So....whether we want it or not (we don't, really), we are obligated to try to get rid of it, or at least to keep it under control.
Bruce
Herd Master
Sounds like a task for Sisyphus
Baymule
Herd Master
Fined $100 per day? No wonder you want to get rid of it! I have never had that problem, I've never had any growing on my property. I guess that what come from just reading about it in articles where it is touted as the shepherd's answer to worms and parasites. Duh. HELLO!! Real world.
