Some of the best pastures in Iowa consist of a mixture of Kentucky
bluegrass, timothy, and sweet clover. On a farm observed near Delmar,
Iowa, stock is pastured on meadows containing this mixture from the
first part of April to the middle of June. From this time until the
first part of September the stock is kept on one-half to two-thirds the
total pasture acreage. The remainder of the pasture land is permitted
to mature a seed crop. After the seed crop is harvested the stock
again is turned on this acreage, where they feed on the grasses and
first-year sweet-clover plants until cold weather. The seed which
shatters when the crop is cut is usually sufficient to reseed the
pastures. By handling his pasture land in this manner, the owner of the
farm has always had an abundance of pasture and at the same time has
obtained each year a crop of 2 to 4 bushels of recleaned seed to the
acre from one-third to one-half of his pasture land. This system has
been in operation on one field for 20 years and not until the last two
year's has bluegrass showed a tendency to crowd out the sweet clover.
It is essential that sufficient stock be kept on the pastures to keep
the plants eaten rather closely, so that at all times there will be an
abundance of fresh shoots.
Whenever the first crop of the second year is not needed for hay or
silage it can be used for no better purpose than pasturage. In fact,
it is better to pasture the fields until the middle of June, as this
affords one of the most economical and profitable ways of handling the
first crop. In addition to its value for pasture, grazing induces the
plants to send out many young shoots close to the ground, so that when
the plants are permitted to mature seed a much larger number of stalks
are formed than would be the case if the first crop were cut for hay.
The hay crop is likely to be cut so close to the ground that the plants
will be killed, whereas but little danger of killing the plants arises
from close pasturing early in the season. Excellent stands of sweet
clover will produce an abundance of pasturage for two to three mature
steers per acre from early spring to the middle of June.
Cattle which are pasturing on sweet clover alone crave dry feed. Straw
has been found to satisfy this desire and straw or hay should be
present in the meadow at all times, After stock are removed from the
field it is an excellent plan to go over it with a mower, setting the
cutter bar so as to leave the stubble 6 to 8 inches high. This will
even up the stand, so that the plants will ripen seed at approximately
the same date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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