Keep it Right: the best way to manage established grassland

As stock go out, now is the time to look over your grazing fields and plan appropriate action for the coming season. Livestock producers can get help from an easy-to-read booklet available from Dow AgroSciences.

Many factors affect the performance of a grass sward with fertiliser and slurry inputs, soil structure, pH and weed management as some of the most important. Dow AgroSciences's updated booklet called Keep it Right gives key pointers and practical tips on how to get the best out of managing established grassland.

Soil structure is often a neglected aspect of grassland management with too much or too little water frequently limiting grass growth. Assessing soil type, structure and friability will help to identify problems at an early stage.

Key points include: managing a firm, well-drained soil; ensuring good drainage by sub-soiling or mole-draining if compaction occurs; patching up bare areas in gateways and moving feed troughs and salt licks regularly.

Fields should be tested, ideally, every three to five years for soil pH and nutrient status, with the aim of maintaining the optimum pH at 6-6.5 to give the best grass growth. Weeds in grassland often indicate problems in soil structure and nutrients and these should be corrected before attempting to control the weeds.

However, if you do not control perennial weeds they will compete with young growing grass and can seriously reduce grazing yields later in the season. For a variety of problem weeds in a field such as docks, thistles and nettles the use of a herbicide like Pastor will give long-term control of all these key weeds and also annual weeds such as chickweed and mayweed.

Weeds can be sprayed when they are actively growing and at the rosette stage (four to 10 leaves) for docks and thistles, or just before flowering for nettles.