Are you planning on reseeding this year?

Reseeding is a considerable investment to undertake at €200-300/ac, so it is worth making sure that it is done correctly.

Reseeding offers a number of benefits to grassland farmers: it can help to increase the amount of grass that is grown; help to lengthen the growing season; and produce higher levels of energy and protein.

These benefits can lead to more days at grass, more milk, and better growth rates in cattle – which will help to put more money in your pocket.

Assess first

Pastures need to be assessed before action is taken; deciding on when to reseed an old sward or pasture can be difficult.

In some cases where the grass proportion of the sward still contains a high proportion of ‘desirable’ ryegrass, then the sward may be improved by a change of management.

As a pasture ages, the composition of it changes and this change may be slowed down or accelerated according to management.

When deciding on reseeding:

Carry out a field inspection;
Walk through the field/paddock and access the sward in at least 10 different areas;
Check for percentage of open ground, ryegrass and other grasses/weeds;
Access both the grazing and silage cutting areas, as action to be taken can be very different;
A good pasture should have little or no open spaces, however a small amount of space, of less than 5%, can be tolerated for tetraploids.

Reseeding silage ground

It is desirable that pastures contain greater than 60% ryegrass. However, ryegrass is less persistent under silage harvesting when cut below 5cm, or if the fertility status of the soil (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, pH) is low.

The main characteristics by which any grass can be judged is productivity – both yield and growth habit – palatability, persistence and time of growth.

Any silage sward with less than 50% ryegrass in spring may need to be considered for reseeding. Less than half of total reseeding is carried out in spring.

Stocking rates are generally high in the spring; ground is closed for silage – reducing the area for grazing – and the recent dry months of May and June over the last couple of years, which haven’t helped the case for spring reseeding, need to be taken into account before taking ground out for reseeding.

The stocking rate is lower in autumn than spring since little or no land is being cut for silage.

But spring reseeding gives the opportunity to get a couple of grazings in, during the summer months, when ground conditions are more favourable than in the autumn.