What’s growing in my pasture?

A few weeks ago I shared a post about the irregular feeding schedule my horses have now. (Read it here: Effects of an irregular feeding schedule for horses.) One of the many smart suggestions I received was to check the quality of my pasture. I’m not really worried about it. I live in the California foothills; grazing is excellent. But I did start thinking that I should really find out exactly what’s growing in my pasture. I haven’t come close to finishing a catalog of what’s there, but this blog post is a start. Begin by riding through it with me in the video below, taken in mid-February! Or jump to the sections below where I describe the land and the plants growing on it.

Jump to:

Some history regarding the land
About soil
The biome: Oak woodland
So what’s growing in my pasture?
Resources

Some history regarding the land

My horses are on a parcel my parents bought over 30 years ago. An old friend of ours, a US Cavalry officer and veterinarian, raised Charolais cattle on it when I was a child. He took good care of the land, and only a few years passed between his custody and ours. For many years, only our horses were turned out on it, and never more than six or seven at a time. Originally, it was divided into three pastures, one of which was irrigated when the Colonel had it. For a while there were two pastures. At some point while I was living abroad, the final fence came down.

Some time in the last ten years, as they had fewer horses, my parents had a friend graze his cattle on it. This is a good idea, because what you don’t want in fire season is 33 acres of tall dry grass. However, the cattle were not always taken off as quickly as they should have been in drought years. Oak trees are stunted and weeds were more prolific the last few years than they should be. Fortunately, the person who is now putting cattle out there (along with my horses) was good about taking them off last fall. They did come a bit early this winter, but the pasture will have a few months rest now. My brother and I will be protecting oaks, and the grass will have a chance to come in.

The Great Rains of 2023 will undoubtedly help the spring and summer grasses take hold, but they also slowed winter grass growth. Grass needs warm sun to grow and we haven’t seen much of that! And of course, it’s very wet. The animals rip up the soil wherever they go.

Soil is important

Of course, what can grow depends on the soil. This is an excellent resource from UC Davis for figuring out what soil you’ve got: SoilWeb. You can zero in on your pasture, and follow links that will not only tell you the precise characteristics of your soil, but what that means for your purposes.

For example, it tells me that our large, relatively flat pasture is greenfield sandy loam, well-drained (untrue in certain areas, it’s a swamp in places when it’s been raining as it has this year), and prime farmland if irrigated. If left to itself, it will have annual grasses and oaks. Ecological site description: Coarse loamy. Land Classification: Grade 1 (excellent).

Most of the parcel is Blasingame sandy loam: moderately deep, well-drained soil. Ecological site description: thermic granitic foothills (yep). Land Classification: Grade 2 (good) and 3 (fair). Oak woodland, good grazing… but if over-grazed, risk of erosion and no more oaks.

The biome: Oak woodland

With an elevation varying from ~1,700′-~1,900′, the parcel was no doubt at one time covered in trees. We’ve got blue oak, interior live oak, and a few valley oaks, as well as California buckeye, blue elderberry, mountain mahogany, and probably others. We used to have manzanita, but they’ve all died. (Maybe we should try reseeding them too!) Decades of livestock and years of drought have taken their toll, however. We’ve lost dozens of trees in the last ten years to drought, and few saplings survive the depredations of cattle. (That’s why my brother and I are trying to protect the existing samplings and plant and protect new ones.)

There are many oaks and more oak biomes in California. I found tons of information in this document

Above: My brother and nephew protecting an oak that was being destroyed by cattle.

It is currently against California law to cut down an oak tree without permission from the county (even on your own property). Reasons to cut down oaks include dead or sick trees (the trees my parents had cut down were dead) and that’s about it, except maybe fire danger. But historically ranchers cut down oaks to increase pasture under the mistaken belief that fewer trees would mean more and better grassland. Although the immediate aftermath of deforestation may be several years of better grazing, it turns out that the trees provide nutrients that sustain and enhance grasses…

It’s very very complex!

And that’s about all I can say about it with a quick google scholar search! Nothing like trying to learn about something totally out of my area of expertise to make me feel ignorant. I’ll be lucky to understand even a little but about what’s growing in my pasture.

Suffice it to say that ecosystems are extremely complex. Grasses, weeds, fungi, shrubs, and trees all contribute to a rich biome that protects native plants. Grazing, too, can be beneficial for native plants, because cattle preferentially eat introduced grasses… as long as the land is not overgrazed.

I mistakenly thought that the best time to graze cattle was late summer to reduce fire danger. Grazing might well reduce flammable vegetation, but during summer, when the land is dry, cattle prefer shaded, wetter areas and will therefore overgraze near streams and under trees. This means seedlings have even less chance of surviving if you allow cattle access during the summer. Native grasses will be overgrazed. Weeds will outcompete.

The best time to have cattle on your land, it turns out, is generally the wet season, from November to May. (Here’s to hoping it’s reliably wet for a few seasons!) So our current need to have no cattle for a few months while we protect trees is not ideal. That’s all right. It’s been a wet year. They can come back in summer to give the grass a good eating down. We’ll just have to take them off before they start to overgraze, then bring them back in winter. In the meantime, I will try to become better-educated in oak woodland pasture management.

So what’s growing in my pasture?

Before I go down the oak-woodland-pasture-care-rabbit-hole, I want to figure out what’s growing in my pasture. That’s not easy. Generally, I use the iNaturalist and its associated Seek app to identify plants. (See my post on How to Identify Plants in your Pasture.) Seek uses your location and camera to identify plants. With iNaturalist, you upload pictures and other people identify the plant. Sometimes! Not every picture you upload will be identified, and of the ones that are, not all will reach “research grade,” which means 2/3 people agree on an ID based on picture, location, and date. Grasses are particularly difficult–Seek has trouble identifying grasses, and getting a picture that captures the key identifying features is challenging.

Above: Screenshots of the Seek app as it identifies (or fails to identify) plants. You can scroll through the slideshow to see some of the species I have identified in our pasture.

Resources that can help identify what is growing and, just as importantly, what should be growing in a pasture

A good first step is to contact your local Office of Cooperative Extension. The USDA Cooperative Extension system connects federal resources with local entities via state land grant universities. They do things like organize 4-H–that’s how I know about it–from when I was in 4-H! For those of you who missed out, the four Hs are heart, head, hands, and health, all to be dedicated to community service, with a focus (at least in rural areas), on agriculture.

If you are in California, Calscape.org is a great way to learn about native plants in your area. Just plug in your address, and the website will provide you with a list of native plants. For me, it lists 365 plants, including 23 native grasses. I’ve seen only about half of them for sure in the pasture in the last year. Some (such as deergrass) definitely used to be there, but I haven’t seen any since I moved back to Springville.

Of course, I am not good at identifying grasses! Other plants (weeds and/or flowers, trees, shrubs) are easier. Still, I’ll have a go with the lists below.

Positive identifications:

Grasses:

Wall barley (foxtail) is introduced (probably by the Spaniards in the 16th century) and invasive. Horses love it when it’s green and tender and the foxtails aren’t sharp. So do cattle… that’s why grazing can be good for native plants, as long as the cattle are taken off when they finish the invasive species but before they eat the native plants down to stubble. We also have Hare barley, which they like to eat too. Meadow barley is native (might be the subspecies California Meadow barley, I can’t tell the difference), and less tasty.

Brome. Brome is a more problematic invasive species (especially Great or ripgut brome, but we’ve got red brome and downy brome as well). It’s not nutritious, it outcompetes and replaces native grasses, and it turns dry and flammable during wild fire season.

Fescue. We’ve got several fescues, but I’m not good at identifying them. Rat tail fescue is an invasive species that outcompetes native plants and isn’t considered good forage for livestock. Horses do like it though, when it’s green and tender. Pacific fescue is native.

Wild oat. This is an invasive species in California, but don’t seem to outcompete too badly. And at least they are good for horses and humans to eat. The horses like wild oats less than barley, but they eat them.

Volunteer wheat pops up too. Horses like it of course.

Bluegrasses of different types. For sure one-sided bluegrass, which is native. Lots of introduced bluegrasses too, including Kentucky bluegrass, can be found.

At least one type of wild rye.

Flowers:

Snowdrops (what we call them) or rusty popcornflower. These have a beautiful soft fragrance that is apparent when you pass a hillside of the tiny white flowers.

The very shy and hard to find fairy lantern is one of my favorite flowers.

Miniature Lupine. Jazz loves to eat these little guys (see video), but Fantazia won’t touch them. We also have other lupines.

Foothill Triteleia. We called them starflowers. They start blooming when it gets warmer.

Butterfly mariposas. Pretty sure we’ve got more mariposas.

Purple Owl Clover is a native plant, but it’s not a clover. It’s actually related to paintbrushes. It does grow on hillsides. It’s parasitic–it gets nutrients from other plant roots and therefore has small leaves. I can’t imagine it’s particularly nutritious but horses will eat it. (we have lots of different owl clovers!)

Above: Flowers! Even fiddleneck (left or top) can be beautiful. Middle: owl clover with snowdrops behind it. Right/bottom: Poppis, miniature lupine, brodiaea (blue dicks), snowdrops,

Nasty stuff

Fiddleneck is toxic to horses when it builds up in their livers. Over time, eating fiddleneck can lead to liver poisoning (read about it here). Fiddleneck is a disagreeable plant. It is prickly and irritating to human skin. You’d think horses wouldn’t eat it, but they will if it’s mixed in with grasses, or they are hungry enough. Because fiddleneck thrives on broken soil, it easily outcompetes better plants when conditions of drought and/or over-grazing occur. We don’t have a lot, but it’s there. Especially in the more over-grazed portions of the parcel.

Poison oak. Sadly.

Bulbous bluegrass is an invasive weed. Need to get the cattle in winter next year to eat it down before it gets unpalatable.

Potentially useful

Stinging nettle, which I make into soup and is NOT good for horses. See my post about it: Horse reactions to stinging nettle. It makes a yummy soup or tea though.

Wild chamomile aka pineapple weed grows along every path and dirt road. Horses won’t touch it, but it makes chamomile tea and has been used as a herbal remedy for all sorts of things.

Wavyleaf Soap Plant. This native plant is really neat, with curly leaves, a long root used by indigenous people for food and washing, and a really tall stem with beautiful flowers. Unfortunately cattle eat it (my horses won’t, but who knows about others), so we might not see the flowers if the cattle are put back out too soon.

Other plants:

Filaree, aka Stork’s Bill, is an invasive (non-native) weed that can be highly annoying once it dries. The seed pods are attached to pointy pits that curl up and attach to socks and hair. But filaree is also excellent eating for livestock, fattening and tasty (at least before it dries up). We’ve got at three types growing in our area, broadleaf (most common in the pasture), redstem, and whitestem. Filaree comes from the Mediterranean and Asia. Because it’s very drought-tolerant, it outcompetes native plants.

Subterranean clover is (like all clovers) a legume introduced to the Americas. The subterranean varieties (called so I would guess because they are low growing and get covered by higher grasses) tolerate close grazing and coexist well with other plants. All in all, subterranean clovers are good to have in pastures I believe. We’ve got a lot in the flatter part of the parcel.

Bur clover is also good forage for livestock, but… it’s got burs! So it does get caught in hair and wool (not good if you’ve got sheep but we don’t.) Also an invasive species from Europe.

Sand pygmyweed is a stonecrop that can be found all over the place. Not edible, or at least no one seems to eat it though it’s not poisonous as far as I know. Very pretty colors.

And lots lots more that I won’t ever remember, including of course, California poppies, blue dicks (we call them brodiaea) other brodiaea, onions, Bur parsley, Shepherd’s purse, Henbit Deadnettle, honeysuckle, Red maids, malva, fiesta flowers, miner’s lettuce, various mustards…

Trees

Besides blue oak, interior live oak, and at least one valley oak, we’ve got California buckeye, Blue elderberry, mountain mahogany, purple vetch. We’ve got several patches.

And etc…

Ok, there are a lot more plants growing in my pasture! But I want to get this published today, and I cannot possibly identify all of them. For one thing, some are not growing yet, or are not yet in an identifiable stage. I’ll add to this post later, if need be.

Given the current state of my horses, and prior history of many fat horses, the pasture provides plenty of nutrients. This project started because my horses weren’t coming in for food during the week, when I am working out of town. Three weeks ago, Fantazia was skinny. She’s not anymore. Jazz is getting round. The grasses are taking off. The most likely scenario is that I’ll have to worry about fat horses, not skinny ones. I’ll certainly be saving on hay!

Above: I started on the pasture plant identification project because I was worried my horses would get skinny. It looks like I may have the opposite problem soon!

Resources

The USDA National Agroforestry Center (NAC) website has tons of resources. From the site: “Agroforestry is the intentional combination of agriculture and forestry to create productive and sustainable land use practices.”

The NAC lists several best practices for combining land use and conservation, including silvopasture, or “the deliberate integration of trees and grazing livestock operations on the same land.” They seem to mean growing trees for profit–which we’re not interested in–but the strategies for integrating livestock pasture and trees are interesting.

The website of the National Association of State Foresters has links the the forest action plans of all the states.

California Native Plant Society. Membership is cheap and they do lots of fun stuff!

For California, Calscape is a great took for identifying plants

iNaturalist