When To Mow, What To Mow
Our pasture is very important to us. Our pasture is all our cows eat. If our pasture is bad, our beef is bad. If our pasture is good, so is our beef. Now, there is more in our pasture than what we planted. Some is good, some is bad. Some of the good is Birdsfoot Trefoil. Some of the bad is Horse Weed. Mowing does more than remove grass from our pasture in the form of bales. We need bales for the winter, when our grasses and legumes are dormant or under 11”of snow. It also removes weeds that go into the bales as well. But that is not always bad. Immature Ragweed is a good nutrition source for cows and they like it. Older Ragweed is another story. It is not very palitable and can injure the mouth of the cow because it becomes stemmy and can cut their gums and cheeks. That can lead to lump jaw and as you may have guessed, you don’t want your cow to get lump jaw.
If we also think about the winter, we need to decide when to cut the pasture. Many weeds are annuals. If you cut the weeds too early, they can put on new growth and go to seed. If you cut the weeds later, they may regrow, but they will put on fewer seeds which means fewer new weeds next year. If you cut the weeds too late, they drop their seeds when you mow and bale and you will have mature weeds and seeds in your bales. This causes the spread of the weeds when you feed the bales. If you cut it at just the right time, you will still get some weeds, but your weed load will be significantly reduced.
Now, if we cut the pasture early, that will allow time for the pasture to grow back for more pasture later in the Summer. If we are blessed with rain, it may grow back quite well and give us enough to stockpile. Stockpiling means leaving the cows off that area of the pasture so that it can grow extra vegetation and give us extended winter grazing when it is exposed.
Some pasture grasses are perennials. Some grow back for 5 years or so. Some grow back almost indefinitely. Timothy only grows back 5 years or so and it really grows quite slow so if you mow, it probably won’t go to seed again that year . Clovers last a long, long time. Of course the annuals must go to seed to come back next year. When the grasses top out and go to seed they basically stop growing to put their energy into the seed. This means your vegetation growth has pretty well come to a standstill. If the seeds are removed, mowed, the plant will grow some again. And as I said before, annual pasture grasses need to go to seed or their presence will disappear.
What adds a bit of confusion to this when to mow, what to mow conundrum is not all paddocks will be the same. Some will have weeds that grow faster, some slower. Same with the grasses.
So, the question of When to mow, What to mow is not an easy answer. Probably it is an impossible decision to make perfectly because the solution you want is not addressed the same way. Some paddocks will need to be cut early. Some will need to wait so some pasture grasses can go to seed. This year may be different than next year, so what you do this year might make a mess next year. When I try to figure when to mow and what to mow, I end up feeling like Moe of the 3 Stooges. Seems each year my mowing turns into a comedy. Well, that’s Farming and Show Business.