Old Pasture Seeding

Learn how you can establish a prairie ecosystem on old pasture land.

By Carl Kurtz
Published on October 1, 2018

A Practical Guide to Prairie Reconstruction (The University of Iowa Press, 2013), by Carl Kurtz, is a step-by-step guide to implementing a diverse and thriving prairie ecosystem. Kurtz is a naturalist and teacher whose professional writing and experience on his own acreage of prairie has informed a revival in preserving prairie tallgrasses. The following selection explains how to reestablish a diverse prairie on old pasture land.

What is the procedure for seeding an old pasture? Are there any benefits?

If you’re thinking about establishing prairie in an old pasture, here are some recommendations. Before doing anything to the site, take an inventory of what is growing there. We purchased an eighty-acre pasture fourteen years ago, and during the summer before we took possession we were able to make a list of nearly one hundred native species that were growing on the site. Generally it is best to allow the pasture vegetation to grow for at least a year after a history of heavy grazing to see what shows up. Burning the area may activate bonsai prairie plants. Our site had been so overgrazed that it took three years before we had enough vegetation to do the first burn.

Here is a procedure that we used that you might try if parts of your pasture are extremely degraded. First, we mowed the area in October and waited until new green vegetation appeared. We then sprayed it with Roundup in early November.

If the site had been smooth enough to drive over with a mower the next summer, we would have fall-seeded in late November. Instead, in early April, we burned off the dead vegetation. A few weeks later, remnant stands of big bluestem, side-oats grama, prairie violet, and sedges came up green and lively. They had been untouched by the spraying since they were in a dormant state. We tilled the soil lightly where there were native plants. We used a field cultivator in the rest of the area to uproot the rhizomes in patches of reed canary grass and an extensive area of smooth brome. Once the ground was leveled, we rolled it with a cultipacker and spread the seed mix.

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