Planted Pasture and Veld Reinforcement

#The planting that fails before the seed goes in

Digitaria eriantha seed is fluffy and hairy. It does not flow through planting equipment, it bridges in the box, and it sits on top of a rough seedbed and dries out. The standard fix is to mix it with superphosphate or sawdust, or to have it pelleted, and to roll the land before and after seeding (SA Grain; SANBI). Skip that and you have paid for land preparation, seed, fertiliser, diesel and a season, and you will be reseeding next year.

Establishment failure is the commonest way an expensive planting turns into an expensive nothing — and it is almost always the seedbed, not the seed.

But there is a question that comes before the seedbed, and it is the one this lesson exists to force.

#First, prove the gap is real

The two previous lessons changed what the veld is. This one considers replacing part of it, and the case has to be made in numbers.

On the summer-rainfall half of the country the gap is structural, not accidental. Sourveld provides adequate nutrition for only about 5 to 7 months of the year, and in some conditions "only supply enough nutrients for three months of the year"; sweetveld can be grazed year-round without loss of condition (Voermol). Above roughly 650 mm on leached soils you are at the sour end and the winter protein collapse is a certainty, not a risk.

Now size it. Say you run 20 small-frame cows with calves at foot on 120 ha of Highveld grassland at the departmental Grassland mean of 6 ha/LSU (DALRRD). The ARC puts a 450 kg small-frame cow with a calf at 1.32 LSU eating 12 kg dry matter a day (Mokolobate et al. 2017). So the herd is 26.4 LSU against a farm capacity of 20 LSU — and you have found a problem before you have found a fodder gap.

Set that aside for a moment and price a genuine 120-day winter gap for those 20 cows:

20 cows × 12 kg DM/day × 120 days = 28 800 kg = 28.8 tonnes of dry matter.

That is the number a planted block has to deliver. Not "some winter feed". Twenty-eight point eight tonnes, standing, in that window.

South African specifics

What the two Highveld workhorses actually yield.

Eragrostis curvula (weeping lovegrass, oulandsgras) — sourced dry matter yields of 3–10 t/ha without added fertiliser and under low rainfall, rising to 20–30 t/ha with adequate fertiliser under irrigation (Feedipedia). Easy to establish, persistent, combines with Digitaria and legumes. Its weakness is that quality falls as it matures — it is bulk, not protein.

Digitaria eriantha (Smuts finger grass) — annual dry matter yields of 12–18 t/ha under optimal conditions, falling to 1.5–7 t/ha in the western summer-rainfall areas at 400–800 mm (SA Grain).

Note the spread on both, and note which end of it your rainfall puts you at. Regional South African yield figures for Eragrostis by province are widely repeated but could not be traced to a primary source for this course, so none are given here — get them from ARC-Animal Production or your provincial pasture guide before you budget.

Run the block against the gap. At the low end of the unfertilised Eragrostis range, 3 t/ha, your 28.8 t needs 9.6 ha; at 10 t/ha it needs 2.9 ha. That is a threefold difference in the size of your capital decision, driven entirely by which end of a sourced range your soil and rainfall actually deliver — which is an argument for planting a small block, measuring it for two seasons, and then sizing the real one. Cutting, baling and feeding losses sit on top of that arithmetic; no South African loss percentages could be sourced for this course, so measure your own rather than applying a rule of thumb.

And notice what the block does not fix. Eragrostis is bulk. The winter constraint on sourveld is protein, not volume. A planted block closes the quantity half of the gap; the quality half is a nutrition decision that belongs to the animal-health material, with the actual product and rate coming from the registered label or your veterinarian, never from a course.

#Establishment is where the money is lost

Do this on the farm

Before you plant anything:

Name the gap in tonnes of dry matter and in dates. If you cannot write "28.8 t DM between 1 June and 30 September", you are not ready to plant.
Check it is a gap and not an overstock. Convert every animal on the place to LSU and compare with the farm's capacity. The ARC notes capacity and actual stocking rate "sometimes differ by as much as 300%".
Choose the block for the soil, not for convenience — old lands and previously cultivated ground first, so the tillage cost has already been paid once.
Prepare a fine, firm seedbed. This is the step that decides the outcome. Roll before seeding and roll again after.
Seed Digitaria at 4–7 kg/ha, mixed with superphosphate or sawdust, or pelleted, because the seed will not flow through equipment on its own.
Fence it separately so you can control its rest independently of the veld rotation — the block's recovery period is a different number from the veld's, and you will have to measure it (below).

#When two credible sources disagree

Contested — here is both sides

How long must planted Digitaria eriantha rest between grazings?

SA Grain says 30 to 60 days — enough regrowth before the next grazing (SA Grain).

SANBI says it "preferably needs to be grazed every 2 to 3 weeks" (PlantZAfrica).

That is 14 days against 60 — a fourfold spread between two credible South African sources, and this course cannot resolve it. Both are almost certainly right somewhere: recovery is season- and region-dependent, and a pasture in the December flush is a different plant from the same pasture in March.

What to do when the sources contradict each other is the actual lesson. Do not average them, and do not pick the one that suits your rotation. Set recovery from the plant, not from the page: graze again when the sward has rebuilt its leaf area and the grass has regrown to a grazeable height with reserves restored, and record how many days that took in each month of the season. Within two seasons you will have your own number for your own block, which is worth more than either published figure. The underlying physiology supports this: in Themeda triandra, leaf area expands quickly after defoliation but relative growth rate is not sustained much past about 14 days, and more than five defoliations a year severely reduced yield (Oecologia). Recovery is a biological state, not a date.

#The principle it violates

Say it plainly. Establishing a planted pasture means ploughing, and ploughing violates principle two — minimise disturbance — outright. There is no way to write around it.

The defensible position is a context judgement, not a principle: a small, high-output planted block that takes winter pressure off a large veld area can be net-positive for the veld overall. Eight hectares ploughed once, holding the herd off 120 hectares of grassland through the winter, is a defensible trade. Eighty hectares ploughed to carry animals the farm should not be carrying is a different transaction entirely, and no amount of regenerative vocabulary changes that. Notice that the trade is only defensible if you can state both sides of it in numbers — hectares broken against LSU-grazing-days bought.

The legal position

South African law has already reached the same conclusion, from the other direction. Under Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act 43 of 1983, Regulation 9(1)(e), where veld deterioration shows, the land user must either (i) suitably reduce animal numbers, or (ii) withdraw the deteriorating portions from grazing until recovered, or (iii) establish a suitable grazing crop in addition to the existing vegetation. A planted pasture is a named statutory remedy for veld deterioration — alongside destocking and rest, and as an alternative to them, not an excuse to avoid them.

One check before you break new ground: CARA also governs the cultivation of virgin soil (Regulation 2). The terms of that regulation were not read for this course, so if the block you intend to plant has never been cultivated, ask the provincial executive officer before the plough goes in. (CARA Regulations)

#The habit that hides an overstocking problem

Return to the herd from the worked example: 26.4 LSU on a farm with a capacity of 20 LSU. Plant eight hectares of Eragrostis, feed it out over winter, and next spring the veld comes back a little thinner than the year before. So you plant ten hectares. Then twelve.

That is the failure mode, and it is easy to recognise once you know the shape of it. A planted strip is the right answer when the gap is fixed and the block closes it. It is the wrong answer when the gap grows every year — because a growing gap is not a fodder problem, it is a stocking problem wearing a fodder problem's clothes. Elsenburg's guidance is blunt on the underlying discipline: the recommendation is usually to keep fewer animals than the grazing capacity allows, and animals kept above capacity must be fed in a feeding area, not on the veld — because supplemented animals still graze, and trampling plus continued grazing degrades the pasture while you are paying for the feed (Elsenburg).

Veld reinforcement — oversowing or thickening an existing sward rather than ploughing it out — sits between the two. It disturbs less and it costs less, and where the veld's basal cover and species composition are the constraint it is the more honest intervention. This course could not source South African oversowing establishment rates or success percentages, so no numbers are offered; ask your extension officer what has worked on your soil form before you commit a block.

#What to do on Monday

Write down your fodder gap as a number of tonnes of dry matter between two dates, then convert your whole herd to LSU and compare it with your farm's capacity. If the second sum shows you are overstocked, deal with that first — a planted pasture bought to carry an overstock is the most expensive way there is to postpone a destocking decision.

#Check yourself

3 questions — answers explained as you go

1You need to carry 20 small-frame cows with calves through a 120-day winter gap, and each needs about 12 kg of dry matter a day. Unfertilised Eragrostis curvula on your soil yields somewhere in the sourced 3–10 t/ha range. What does that tell you about block size?
Why: The arithmetic is 20 × 12 × 120 = 28 800 kg. Dividing by each end of the sourced yield range gives 2.9 ha and 9.6 ha — a threefold difference in a capital decision, driven by which end of the range your own soil and rainfall deliver. Neither guessing high nor guessing low is management; measuring a small block for two seasons is. Cutting and feeding losses then sit on top of whatever you measure.
2SA Grain gives Digitaria eriantha a 30–60 day rest; SANBI says it preferably needs grazing every 2 to 3 weeks. What should you do?
Why: Two credible South African sources give a fourfold spread, which almost certainly means recovery is season- and region-dependent rather than that one of them is wrong. Averaging manufactures a number nobody measured. Recovery is a biological state — after defoliation, relative growth rate is not sustained much past about a fortnight — so read the sward and build your own record.
3Your planted winter block has grown from 8 ha to 12 ha over three years, and the veld still looks thinner each spring. What does that pattern most likely mean?
Why: A fixed gap closed by a fixed block is a working system. A gap that grows every year is a stocking-rate problem wearing a fodder problem's clothes — and the ARC notes that capacity and actual stocking rate sometimes differ by as much as 300%. Convert every animal on the place to LSU and compare with capacity before you plough another hectare, because ploughing costs an average of about 45% of the soil carbon in the top 200 mm and does not fix an overstock.