Pasture care

AZglide

Member
Rainy day here in Nashville and was thinking about my Father always mowing the pastures in the spring. "Keeping the fowlness out" he would say. I have about 80 acres with pretty good fescue but a fair amount of weeds and blackberry. I think he said clip it at about ten inches, but that was fifty years ago and I've been away for awile. Do you mow in the spring and what height? As usual any recomendations or opinions are appreciated.
 
I think a more modern approach would be to clip shorter and in the early fall. Early clipping results in a lot of wildlife injuries and deaths. Too late and the weeds you wanted to kill have gone to seed.
 

Clipping or "topping" a pasture is very important if you want to encourage the good stuff to grow. You need to do it before most weeds go to seed, which around here is mid July. So far as height, the mower is run at the usual height, whether you use a rotary or a sickle bar.
 
I read a story in the furrow one time about mowing where a guy took a piece of pipe and hung it off the front of the tractor with a chain to scare animals out of the grass so he wouldn't kill them
 
Spring mowing helps keep the weeds down all season and kills many weeds if mown before seed heads make, 10" is a good height, funny how
it works but you will definitely have more grass later if you mow now.
 
I have 2 Bonneville towers in my pasture, and when I am out there mowing, there will be one or two Red Tail Hawks, perched on the towers, waiting for me to flush out game for them. I rarely see them, except when mowing.
 
Thank you for the replies. Don't want to wipe out the wild life but can't wait until fall and let the briers get a better stronghold. Fellow next to me had a patch of hybrid blackberrys
about thirty years ago. They are gone but I think they cross bred with wild ones. What I am dealing with now is larger than wild fast growing briers that spred like crazy. One area,
about two acres was completely covered. I mowed it and kept it plowed and disked for two years and they still came back. Roundup has little effect.....
 

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