Reducing Buttercup in Pastures

Increased Soil Fertility and Aeration to Reduce Buttercup in Pastures

Some weed species are more easily managed in livestock pastures than others.
Many annual and perennial weeds, if offered to cattle in the vegetative stage, are
nutritious and readily consumed before they mature and reproduce. Periodic
clipping of pastures to remove over-mature and refused forage and weeds will
also help to control weed seed production. However, several perennial weeds
are unpalatable to livestock and/or are able to set seed on low-growing nodes or
creeping stems that are too low to be clipped. The buttercups (Ranunculus spp.)
are such weeds. Once established they become a problem because they
produce many seeds and the herbage is often unpalatable and can be toxic to
livestock if eaten in large quantities.

Increasing populations of these weeds will seasonally foul areas of pasture by
producing enough unpalatable stems that livestock will cease trying to select forage
from the weeds and refuse all herbage.

Pasture managers constantly seek to identify management practices that can
provide some level of control of these weeds. The goal of this project was to use
fertility and soil aeration to improve the competitiveness of the various forage
species over the buttercup by increasing forage plant growth vigor.

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