It is currently Tue Mar 19, 2024 12:26 am

All times are UTC - 6 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 16 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 1:17 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I just visited a friend's farm about 40 miles southwest of San Antonio on I-35. I came away with a question as to how to get rid of stickers and mesquite in 30 acres of Klein grass. They're spraying molasses at about 2 gallons per acre after every mowing.

Three years ago the fields were scrub and mesquite, so after being cleared, it now has maybe a million mesquite seedlings and maybe 100 million sticker seeds. Right now there is no livestock on those fields, but animals might be a solution. Just don't know which ones.

Ideas?

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: stickers and mesquite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:24 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
Dave: Stickers are a sign of lack of fertility. Compost would be my first choice, but since that is not cheap, I would suggest dry humate with organic fertilizer. Randy Mosley in Fort Worth has some great mixes with humates.
I would also like to see what ocean solution would do as it provides 92 trace mineral plus beneficial bacteria, enzymes, and amino acids. A gal of ocean nutrition makes 100 gal and that does 10 acres. They already spray molasses, so this should be a breeze.
I think the mesquite is another problem. It is a pioneer plant. It comes into worn out land and then helps establish nitrogen (it is a legume). I still think the humate mixtures and ocean nutrition would help. However this maybe like poision - you have to keep cutting the tops until the stored energy is expended from under the ground.
Robert D. Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 2:20 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
Thanks Robert. I think the stickers are a legume, too, but I can't find a picture of the seed in the weed websites I've looked at. It is not a sticker that hurts you, like bull heads or sand burrs, it more like an annoying Velcro seed that just sticks to your pants and boot laces. It's about the size of half a pencil eraser and oval in shape - like a rugby ball. I'm thinking burr clover but I can't find any clover growing out there. Anyway...

Now, what do you think about grazing the hay fields just as they are? The Klein grass is about hip high, the mesquite is 2 inches high, and I couldn't find any sticker plants, just seeds. There is some coastal bermuda, but it doesn't look too good (low fertility indication). If it were my 30 acres, this is what I would do...I would set it up for intensive grazing with electric fences and water (full electric and pressurized well water are right at the uphill edge of the fields). They also have 13 head of Angus-mix cattle elsewhere on the property to bring in (1 alpha bull, 2 yearling bulls, 4 cows, 3 month-old calves, and 3 yearling heifers that desperately need protection). They tell me the carrying capacity is one AU per acre with all the rain they get, so the 13 animals have room to grow. Twelve paddocks would work well in the present configuration and still give them hay to mow (they just love that mowing!!??). I think more/better legumes would improve the forage considerably. I don't know if red clover grows there or not, but that would be the idea to seed in additional legumes as the animals move through the pastures this winter. Currently the animals get no meds or supplements except mineral, so they're on their way to being natural if not organic. They look real good. Does this sound like a plan that might work?

Would the wet cows eat the tender mesquite? If not, would anything else eat tender mesquite if they did a sequenced rotation and brought in sheep or goats after the cattle?

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 7:04 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:35 am
Posts: 94
Location: houston, tx
David, I do not have the answer to your question and have been researching this same subject myself. Have some mesquite coming up in places on my farmland and have notice the cattle do not touch the stuff.

The only thing I might pass along that I am still researching --is the possibility of grazing cattle with meat goats. Apparently the goats are your natural herbicide and some farmers are resorting to this method as it is more effective and economical. The only issue that some of the goat farmers tell me you have to be careful of, is the fenced area. You have to have the area goat-proofed. From what I understand goats even like poison ivy :lol: - Susan

_________________
"Life ain't in holding a good hand, but playing a good hand well." - William Smeathers


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: pasture grass
PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 2:47 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
Dave: I know what sticky seeds you are talking about but I don't what they are called, but I think increased fertility will help. Your thinking is on the right track with MIG cells, but the real problem is the mesquite.
If goats will eat it, I would follow cattle with meat goats. There is a huge shortage of goat meat in US and they turn quickly. The demand is in Hispanics and Middle Easterners. We have people up here raising goast with 4 strands of electri fence and they don't cross it and it is on a major busy hwy.
If goats won't eat mesquite then they would be waste of time.
Susan is correct, cows will not eat mesquite until it grows up and then they will eat to seeds out of the pods (it makes a great cattle feed) and deposit them all over the pastures. I our area we had the Preston Trail for driving cattle back in the 1800's after the civil war and to this day you can follow the trail by following the mesquite. The cows ate the seeds and spread them as they went north. If you travel east to west from Sherman to Whitesboro on Hwy 82 you can see where the trail was by mesquite and if you get down on some of the ranches you can find old fence rows that ranchers put in to let the herds go through without covering their whole ranches.
Sorry. Just a little history.
Robert D Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:46 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I wonder if it was sprayed with molasses, would cattle eat it? Goats?

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: mesquite
PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 5:00 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
I don't know?
Bob


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: stickers and mesquite
PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 12:39 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
Another question along same lines. Will corn glutten meal slow down or stop grass spurs in a hay field if put out in the spring? I have just sprayed the field with ocean fertilizer but want to do more if someone thinks this will help.
Robert D Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 10:14 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I think the sticker seeds will germinate from spring to fall, so you would have to have CGM out continuously.

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:03 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2003 9:17 am
Posts: 15
I had seen a TP&W show about controlled burns in S. Texas to control Cedars. Would this work on Mesquites :?: In West Texan we just referred to them as hardwood weeds. Extensive plowing would eventually get them, but that is costly.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: mesquite
PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:40 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
I have talked to some good ole boys from west Tx and they say plowing is the only way to get rid of these "hard" weeds.
Robert D Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 2:45 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I talked to a guy the other day who raises goats on pasture. He says they eat the leaves, so once you get the trees down one way or another, goats will browse it down so they don't come back.

He said he cleared his whole field in Cibolo, TX with his goats. Now it's all grass pasture.

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: mesquite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2003 12:04 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
I learned something else from another good ole boy. The bean of the mesquite is very nutrient rich and tasty to cows. If it is ground up it is fine but if a cow eats the beans, they don't digest all of them and the ones that pass out into the manure will be the only ones to germinate to become trees.
The goats seem to have it but I just can't imagine goats on our land - you know cattlemen don't cotton up to goats (there is probably more money in goats than cows - Ohhhhhhhhhh Welllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert D Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:40 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I hear the same thing about the mesquite beans being spread out.

I try to avoid the comparison profit topic but from what I read, there is more money in pastured goats than cattle. This is on a per acre basis. Each goat sells for less but you have so many more animals per acre. Goats have ethnic marketability from cabrito to a middle eastern ritual slaughter. I just read about a goat ranch where they set up a formal alter (or whatever it is) for the middle easterners who pay to come in to do their thing on his ranch. He said each family usually buys a couple goats. Then there is always angora goats and their hair. If you want to jump to the next level of profitability per acre, look at the money in pastured poultry (can you hear my foot stomping?). I've heard of $4,000 per acre if you don't mind no time off and personally slaughtering and dressing about 2-3 chickens per day per acre.

Of course chickens have nothing to do with mesquite. Goats will eat the leaves should you decide that goats are okay for you 8) . I was talking about them keeping the mesquite sprouts down (once they've cleared the land).

_________________
David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: stickers and mesquite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:44 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator

Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:45 am
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
You are probably right about the profitability of goats but I just can't see me driving a herd of goats off my horse with a cowboy hat on and a western saddle.
On the other hand We raise miniature Herefords and miniature Low Line Angus and they bring a lot more money as meat and/or breeding stock than the large mutant cows that have little taste or tenderness - the reason they end up as hamberger to cover up the lack of taste and toughness.
I am not opposed to goats, I just don't think they are my thing to do in the future.
Robert D Bard


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 16 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

All times are UTC - 6 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by eWeblife