1. Crop Management Practices Cultivation

2. Preparing the soil Plants need nutrients to grow so it can be a good idea to apply fertilizer to the paddock you are planning on sowing out. New Zealand has moderate to low fertility soils, and our soils are lacking in a lot of nutrients such as cobalt and phosphate fertilizing is a good way to put these nutrients back into the soil. Lime is can also be applied to the soil to lower the PH of the soil to 6 or 6.5 which is the optimum PH for plants to grow at. Fertilizer needs to be applied well in advance to sowing as most fertilizer is slow release, if applied well enough in advance it will be releasing as the seeds start to germinate giving them the best start to life.

3. How to prepare the seedbed Before cultivation you need to remove the previous season’s crop. It is a good idea to put stock on the paddock to eat down the pasture. Then kill off the remaining grass with a herbicide spray. The old crop could all so be ploughed under with a plough to put nutrients back into the soil, but this method is more time consuming. It is important to remove the pervious season’s crop so that the new crop doesn’t have to compete for space, light, water or nutrients.

4. How to prepare the seedbed Once the old crop has been removed the correct tilth of the soil needs to be established. This can be done by using discs or power-harrows. These implements will break up hard pans in the soil and any large aggregates. It is important to have a fine tilth so that the plant can easily push it’s way to the surface and so that water and air can filter down through the soil to the roots of the plant. But you do not want your soil so fine that is can be blown away or become subject to top soil erosion.

5. Why Proper Cultivation is Important Cultivation is the process of preparing the land for the growing of plants, it’s makes sure the land is in the best possible condition for seeds to germinate and grow so that a farmer can get the best return for his investment in the pasture. Cultivation is the most important step in pasture growth more so than the actual sowing of the seed because if you sow the seeds with out preparing the soil then your soil might not have the nutrients the crop needs to grow, the seeds will be competing for space, light and water if you have not removed the previous crop, the tilth of soil will not be the best for the specific seeds to germinate, so cultivating is very important for maximising pasture growth.

6. Managing Pasture Pest Control

7. Pests take many forms form large animals that eat the pasture like deer and pigs to little insects and bugs that eat away at certain parts of the plants or introducing disease through damaged plant tissues. It is very important to keep pests under control as they can cause lots of damage and spread like wildfire across your farm and others. Some types of pests are: Deer Pigs Rabbits Weevils Slugs Beetles

8. Pest Control There are many ways to control pests. Larger pest like deer and rabbits can be shot or poisoned but smaller pest are usually killed by a pesticide spray, they can also be controlled by planting a crop that is resistant to the pest like rye grasses with entophytes. Making sure there are no pests eating your pasture is very important as pests are not your stock that need the pasture and some pest can carry disease or animal health problems. Plants that are disease free can put all their energy into growing rather than repairing damage or fighting infection.

9. Pest Control Pest control is a more important pasture management practice than grazing management because if you do not keep pest under control then you will not have pasture to graze. Grazing management is making sure the pasture is grazed in the most beneficial way for the stock and the pasture, this can be related back to pest control because over grazing or over stocking can damage the pasture making it more susceptible to pests or increase the damage done by pests. Making sure that your pastures aren’t being attacked by pests makes sure that you will have pasture to manage the grazing of. But stock should not be grazing pastures with pest problems as this can cause major animal health problems such as TB (Spread through pests like possums).

10. Pasture Harvesting Hay

11. Making Hay The first step is to mow the grass. The grass is cut with mowers towed or pushed by a tractor. The grass needs to be cut when it’s fully grown but not over mature. It’s best to mow when your going to have 2 or 3 days of hot weather for the grass to dry out. Mowing can also be done with a mower conditioner, which is a machine that cut the grass then feeds it through rollers that conditions the grass breaking the stalk open allowing the moisture to evaporate better. The mower conditioner then drops the grass in windrows.

12. Making Hay The second step if you have you used a conditioner which put the grass into windrows is to use a tedder to take the grass out of windrows. The tedder takes the grass out of windrows and lays it out flat across the paddock. This process allows the grass to dry out quicker than if it was left in windrows. Another step which can be done is to use a macerator which conditions grass even more to dry the grass out even faster before tedding. This step is generally only done if weather is starting to close in and if you have the equipment and time.

13. Making Hay The third step is to rake the grass back in to windrows. This should be done to 2 or 3 days after tedding once the grass has dried out. If you do not use a conditioner or tedder, then raking can be done after mowing and the grass left to dry out in windrows. If you dry the hay in windrows then you might do another pass with the rake to turn the grass over and dry out the under side. Once the grass is dry and in windrows it is ready for baling

14. Making hay Once the hay is dry and windrowed it is ready to be baled. There are two main types of bales round bales and square bales. You can make many different sizes of each of these bales. Round bales are a lot bigger than squares and are cheaper to make than squares, if you need to feed out a lot of hay then you would make round bales. Square bales are generally smaller all though you can make large square bales. If you have less stock to feed (i.e. a hobby farmer) you would generally make small squares.

15. Making Hay Once the hay has been baled it needs to be moved off the paddock and stacked some where convenient to where it will be feed out. It is a good idea to have you hay under cover as sun light bleaches the hay losing nutritional value epically protein and vitamin A. Rain and snow spoils the hay as well. Square bales are generally stacked in a hay barn or covered with a tarp. Round bales are a lot harder to keep out of the weather but should be stacked in rows butted tightly against each other to protect the center of the bale and let rain run off.

16. Maximizing Yield by Making Hay Hay is made in spring and summer when pasture growth is at it’s highest because of higher temperatures and greater rain fall, usually when there is more grass than the stock can eat. So hay is made and then stored away for times like winter when there is not enough grass for the stock to eat. For example in the summer you could have 2500kg of dry matter but in the winter grass of the same length would only get you 1780 kg of dry matter per ha. So that 2500kg of dry matter that might not be needed (because your other paddocks have just as much grass) can be turned in to hay for the winter so that you have your 1780kg of dry matter per ha and 2500kg of dry matter in the form of hay. A way to avoid wasting grass without making hay is to buy in stock to eat excess feed but during the winter when feed is in short supply stock will need to be sold, where as if you make hay you can take a set amount of stock through the whole year.

17. Graph Of Grass Growth

18. Bibliography http://www.pembertonmeadowsbeef.com/howwemak ehay_main.html http://www.pembertonmeadowsbeef.com/howwemak ehay_main.html http://www.therural.co.nz/farming-how-to/square- bales-vs-round-bales http://www.therural.co.nz/farming-how-to/square- bales-vs-round-bales http://www.hobbyfarms.com/crops-and- gardening/how-to-store-hay-and-make-it-last.aspx http://www.hobbyfarms.com/crops-and- gardening/how-to-store-hay-and-make-it-last.aspx http://www.beeflambnz.com/Documents/Farm/Finishi ng%20cattle%20in%20a%20tough%20environment.pdf http://www.beeflambnz.com/Documents/Farm/Finishi ng%20cattle%20in%20a%20tough%20environment.pdf http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/soils/2A.pdf http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/002 0/127280/Cultivation-and-soil-structure.pdf http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/002 0/127280/Cultivation-and-soil-structure.pdf