Fertilizer price increases in the recent past have provided an urgent reality check for farmers, including those who manage pastures. Extension educators and other advisors have been regularly fielding questions regarding what can be done to deal with high fertilizer prices, especially for nitrogen products.
Pasture managers need to examine every aspect of their management program to determine where money can be saved, especially on fertility. Fortunately, with pasture and grazing management we have the opportunity to eliminate, or perhaps nearly eliminate, fertilizer expenditures.
Soil testing remains very important to help guide fertility management. Pasture fields identified as having a lower than optimal pH should be given priority in the fertility budget. Getting the pH into the optimum range can benefit the pasture program in many ways.
Manure from wintering barns can be applied on pastures that are deficient in phosphorus and potassium. Or perhaps winter hay feeding could be targeted to take place in pasture paddocks lacking in nutrients. Hay brings nutrients to the site. And if livestock are fed there for part of the winter, nutrients will be supplied to the soil through manure and urine. The only way we can determine which paddocks will benefit from this type of treatment, is through soil testing.
An effective rotational grazing system will foster nutrient distribution. Moving livestock to new paddocks every few days will help distribute manure and urine more effectively across the farm, compared to continuous grazing or lax rotational grazing. Furthermore, the water system should be capable of delivering water across the pasture acreage so that animals are never further than 600-800 feet from water. This will reduce time the livestock spend traveling for water and camping at watering sites. And in the process nutrient excesses will not be allowed to build up in certain areas such as alleys and near waterers.
Over time much of the fertility in a pasture should effectively recycle. Only a small amount is retained in the animals. And if we rotationally graze, we can benefit from nutrient recycling. If a pasture soil test report is in the moderate or medium range for phosphorus and potassium, with effective recycling we can get by without applying those nutrients at that point.
Nitrogen prices have been especially shocking for pasture managers who regularly apply nitrogen to grass. And it has gotten to the point where the prices are high enough to be prohibitive despite the bump in growth seen with grasses receiving nitrogen fertilizers.
Legumes provide us the opportunity to reduce or eliminate supplemental nitrogen application to pastures. Red clover and white clover are the two best choices in Pennsylvania in most situations. As legumes, clovers can assimilate nitrogen through bacteria that colonize their roots. Grasses benefit from this by taking up nitrogen that sloughs-off from the clover roots. We can have a very aggressive and productive pasture sward without spending money on supplemental nitrogen. Clover seed can be frost-seeded into pastures in late winter, dormant-seeded in the late fall or early winter, and/or spread ahead of grazing to allow hoof action to push it into the soil. Getting enough clover into the pasture will take time and effort but will be well worth it in the quest to eliminate nitrogen expenses.
For pasture managers who plan to continue using grass-only pastures, nitrogen applications can be more cost-effective if applied more strategically. Most grazing farms do not need more grass growth in the spring. Applying nitrogen in the spring may not be as cost-effective as applying it in early summer where the additional pasture growth can help create a little more cushion to get through the summer slump in cool-season grass growth. Or it may be more cost-effective to apply the nitrogen in late summer to allow more stockpiling of grass to occur through the fall.
The answers to the question of what to do about high fertilizer costs will not be the same for all farms. Every situation is a little different. However, most pasture managers will benefit from incorporating some of the ideas outlined above.
Hoping that fertilizer prices will come down is not a good strategy. Most farms will benefit in the future by moving toward a more regenerative pasture and grazing program where we build a resilient and productive system with low levels of purchased inputs.
Source : psu.edu