Pasture Management by the Seasons

guideline is to wait until there is 56 of growth before grazing. Introduce horses to spring grass gradually. Large amounts of any new feed can upset your horses gut and these spring grasses have a lot of nonstructural carbohydrates NSC sugars starch fructans that can trigger laminitis and founder in susceptible horses. Start them off with 15 minutes of grazing per day and gradually increase until they are grazing for your target turnout time. If you have laminitisprone horses with metabolic issues such as insulin resistance and Equine Metabolic Syndrome remember that early spring grasses are highest in NSC all year.
Soil Testing
If you have not tested your soils within the last 3 years you can take soil samples any time the ground is not frozen. Testing kits are available from your county Penn State Extension office and contain instructions for taking the perfect representative sample from each of your pastures. You can also find directions for pulling samples and the submission form at the Agricultural Analytical Services Lab website. Make sure to use the Agronomic Crops submission form.
Nitrogen
Timing of nitrogen N fertilizer application is important because it does not stick around in the soil very long. Spring greenup is an important time to apply N which causes a flush of green leafy growth that is if you have grass. If your pastures are sparse or mostly weeds then you should work on establishing more grass before applying N. Once pastures start turning green in April or so the N will jumpstart grass growth and you will have a lush productive pasture. Either divide the recommended amount of N from your soil test result into 2 or 3 applications or apply 4050 pounds of N. Important note your soil test N recommendation is not the same as the fertilizer amount different fertilizers contain

different proportions of N. The product label will specify the percentage of N so just take that percentage of the bags weight to calculate how many pounds of N are in the bag.
After applying fertilizer especially N you should keep horses off the pasture until about a half inch of rain has washed the fertilizer off the grass.
Phosphorus and Potassium
Your soil test results will also have recommendations for phosphorus P and potassium K fertilizers. These can be applied any time after the first grazing so think May or June. The soil test recommendations for N P and K are meant