Stockpiling Encourages Pasture Legumes

Stockpiling pastures for winter grazing is a great way to allow legumes to naturally reseed in your pastures. Most of the commonly used legumes such as red, alsike, or strawberry clover and birdsfoot trefoil will produce enough seed for stand rejuvenation with 60-75 days of recovery time. Some native legumes will take longer. Most of the strips that are grazed earlier in winter will have seed concentrated in the manure. Later in the winter some of the seed will naturally shatter out to reach the ground while other seed will pass through the rumen & be deposited in the dung piles. Strip grazing with daily moves will give nice manure distribution and result in some seed shatter and incorporation through trampling. We try to let about 1/3rd of our pasture acres have an extended recovery period each year to maintain strong legume stands. Pastures with declining clover stands can be rejuvenated with stockpiling forage through late summer and early autumn. Below is irrigated Idaho pasture in late October with limited clover density. Here's a little better clover which is being allowed to naturally reseed. We like to see 30-50% of our total forage production coming from our legume components each year. This pasture has red, white, and alsike clover as well as some alfalfa and naturally occurring black medic. Here you can see our clover seedlings emerging in a manure pile in the spring following stockpile grazing. This is a mid-May stand of clover se