Pasture

Fertilizing Pastures After a Drought: Ensuring Adequate Mineral Intake and Preventing Grass Tetany

– Ted Wiseman, OSU Extension, Perry County (originally published in Farm and Dairy)

Beware of lush early growth and tetany.

Spring is here, bringing lush pasture growth with April rains and warmer temperatures. Although many of our pastures may have gone into fall and winter in poor condition, do not be tempted to fertilize your pastures this spring. High levels of nitrogen and potassium in the soil can increase the risk of grass tetany. Cool season grasses during this time are often low in magnesium, an essential mineral for normal nerve and muscle function. Low magnesium in the blood can cause “tetany,” leading to muscle stiffness and potentially death if not treated quickly. Both feeding and management practices are needed to prevent this disease. Fertilizing in the spring will increase those chances Continue reading Fertilizing Pastures After a Drought: Ensuring Adequate Mineral Intake and Preventing Grass Tetany →

Spring Fencing Clinic, April 25th

It’s free, but please RSVP

Make plans to join us in Caldwell for a Spring Fencing Clinic at 10:00 a.m. on April 25 at the OSU Extension Operations Building (16714 Wolf Run Rd. Caldwell). The event will include hands-on demonstrations and practice with fence building techniques and tools from morning to afternoon. Lunch will be provided for a noon break with activity continuing into the afternoon and concluding by 4:00 p.m.

Email gelley.2@osu.edu or call 740-732-5681 to RSVP by April 18. It’s free, but please RSVP!

To graze or not to graze?

– Garth Ruff, Beef Cattle Field Specialist, OSU Extension

Green does not mean ready to graze!

As spring begins, we may be ready to turn our herds out to graze, but there are things to consider before making the move.

It’s still dry. Across most of the southern and eastern part of the state, soil moisture is still at a premium. Winter brought some much needed recharging of ponds and streams; however, with the ground being frozen, a large portion of the precipitation ran off into surface water sources.

With limited soil moisture, the greatest concern currently is how to manage what little regrowth that is greening up across the region. Nearly 30% of Ohio is abnormally dry as I write this in late March, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Balancing act
What happens if we turn out to pasture without additional soil moisture? How Continue reading To graze or not to graze? →

Spring Nitrogen Fertilization for Winter Annual Cereal Grain Forages

– Kendra Rose and Jason Hartschuh, CCA, OSU Extension

Cereal rye. Photo credit: Pixabay.com

Nitrogen fertilization of cereal grains for forage is important for both yield and quality. Using an application method split between the spring and fall is important and can increase yield and tillering, can help spread the risk of nitrogen loss and improve the nitrogen use efficiency. Knowing what your target yield is will help you determine how much the split application will be.

When fertilizing in the spring it’s important to have the correct timing and apply the nitrogen as the crop breaks dormancy. This allows there to be less of a chance for runoff and leaching and the ground is not frozen allowing the nitrogen to move into the soil to be utilized by the crop. Dormancy will break at different times in the spring depending upon . . .

Continue reading Spring Nitrogen Fertilization for Winter Annual Cereal Grain Forages

Practice patience before turning out!

– Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

Very short, green early grass may catch the eye, but it’s just a teaser. The true feast comes later-and it’s worth the wait for better production and health.

Some pastures that were grazed too tightly last fall may appear greener than those with adequate residual. However, this “greener” appearance can often be misleading. In many cases, it signals that the plants are struggling to survive, pushing out new growth as a last-ditch effort to recover.  If this is the case, these pastures urgently need recovery time. Overgrazing in the fall leaves plants facing several challenges, including depleted energy reserves and weakened root systems, which hinders their spring recovery. There is a lot of this in areas that were droughty.

When pastures are grazed too closely in the fall, especially before plants have gone dormant, essential plant material—particularly photosynthesizing leaves—are removed. These leaves were vital for energy production through photosynthesis. Without them, plants can’t replenish energy reserves for dormancy, leaving them with minimal resources to survive the winter. As a result, they Continue reading Practice patience before turning out! →

Was the grass dead or dormant?

– Christine Gelley, OSU Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County (also published in Ohio Farmer on-line)

This tall fescue pasture has been resting since August 2024 and is greening up in March 2025.

Prolonged drought in much of the state during 2024 led to many conversations about how bad the observed condition of pasture actually was and if it would bounce back when precipitation comes. Three months into 2025, we are still waiting for the answer.

Back in July and August, I answered those questions with the response of “Right now, the grass is dormant. It is saving resources to rebound when moisture comes.” Moving into in October and November, I became less confident that the brown and crusty grass we saw was dormant. Some of it was dead and some was dormant. We are still waiting to see which Continue reading Was the grass dead or dormant? →

Reclaiming Pugged Up Pastures

– Dr. Chris Teutsch, UK Research and Education Center at Princeton

Figure 1. Sorghum-sudangrass is easily established once soil temperatures research 60 F and provides rapid growth and canopy cover outcompeting common summer annual weeds.

Wet conditions this winter have resulted in almost complete disturbance in and around hay feeding areas. Even well designed hay feeding pads will have significant damage surrounding the pad where animals enter and leave. These highly disturbed areas create perfect growing conditions for summer annual weeds like spiny pigweed and cockle bur. Their growth is stimulated by lack of competition from a healthy and vigorous sod and the high fertility from the dung, urine and decomposing organic material around hay feeding areas.

Our most common approach to revegetating these areas is trying to reseed cool-season perennial grasses (tall fescue and orchardgrass) and legumes (red and white clover) in mid- to late-spring. On the surface this seems to be a logical approach. However, it rarely works as well as we would like. The problem is that cool-season perennial grasses usually don’t have enough time to become fully established before the weather turns hot. In addition, summer annual weed pressure can be fierce during establishment. The net result is that Continue reading Reclaiming Pugged Up Pastures →

Considerations for perennial grass species selection when reseeding pasture

One result of the drought of 2024 may be the need to reseed pasture or perhaps perennial grass hay fields. During the second session of the Ohio Virtual Beef School on February 26, 2025, Noble County OSU Extension Educator Christine Gelley reviewed selection criteria when considering which grass forage species to include in new seedings. Here’s that portion of Gelley’s presentation.

Find the 2025 Virtual Beef School, session 2; Post Drought Pasture Management and Recovery in it’s entirety here: https://youtu.be/FhFaqRHsFJs?si=l4EP-xKhDtFwpy9S

Lucky Clovers

– Christine Gelley, OSU Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County (originally published in Progressive Cattle)

Clover can be incorporated in various ways.

For centuries the clover has been symbolic in cultures and religions in areas where clovers thrive. Whether found with leaves of three, four, or more- a field of clover is beneficial in many ways beyond folklore.

Clover Symbolism
March is the humble clover’s time to shine. Symbolic of luck, the celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day, the welcoming of spring, 4-H enrollment time, clovers are featured prominently in our culture this time of year and they become prominent in pastures too.

Much of the agricultural community will recognize a four-leaf clover as the iconic national symbol of 4-H, a youth development program delivered by Cooperative Extension services from coast to coast that impacts nearly 6-million youth participants in all communities and walks of life. The 4-H pledge recognizes the four leaves of the clover as representation of head, heart, hands, and health.

Christian communities often utilize three- and four-leaf clovers as representation of spirituality. Four-leaf clovers can be used as symbols of faith, hope, love, and luck (God’s grace). Saint Patrick is recognized as the first to utilize clovers are a representation of the Holy Trinity- embodying the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God.

Even prior to the times of Christian influence, Celtic cultures collected four-leaf clovers as good luck charms to encourage visits from fairies and to ward off illness and evil spirits. The more leaves on the clover, the luckier it would be.

For the pasture manager, having Continue reading Lucky Clovers →

Pasture; the lingering impact of a dry summer, and tough winter

– Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

Bare soil that is easily seen is an opportunity for weeds and improvement.

Last fall was dry. While drought conditions didn’t reach severe levels in many areas, it had a significant impact on fall forage growth. When moisture returned, it was tempting for many producers to immediately start grazing the new growth to avoid feeding hay early.

I’ve mentioned before how crucial it is to give forages as much rest as possible in the fall so they can build reserves for winter. If the fall is preceded by drought conditions, it becomes even more critical to wait until forages are dormant before grazing again. I know this is easier said than done in many cases. Unfortunately, those same dry conditions make it harder to Continue reading Pasture; the lingering impact of a dry summer, and tough winter →

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