Exploring Root Architecture to Minimize Hog Pasture Compaction

Commodities

Practices

The greatest challenge on Odyssey Farm has become building soil health while pasturing hogs through extreme weather events. From 2019 to 2024, I increased my soil organic matter from an average of .5% (this was a very abused farm) to 1.2%. But I feel like I'm working against soil health in some years. In 2025, we had 2" rains in less than 6 hours on four occasions. Without a barn or even concrete to move hogs to, pastures can become a mud bog in hours. Weather extremes are a growing challenge for all farmers, but I know other farmers who quit raising hogs because the stress associated with pasture damage was too much. I'm interested how I can add root diversity to pastures to withstand extreme weather events and reduce compaction from the hogs through those events. I'm looking for a diverse cover crop mix that offers quality forage to hogs but also adds a density and diversity of root mass to build soil in good conditions and resist compaction under harsh conditions so we can continue to build soil health and organic matter throughout the hog pasture and crop rotations.

Paddock Cover Crop Layout for Root Architecture 12.02.25

Solution:

Solution: Our solution is to test the ability of various forage additions to a baseline pasture mixes to both alleviate and withstand compaction from hog grazing. A one-acre field will be drilled north-south with two strips of oats and balansa and two strips of oats/balansa/Italian ryegrass in early April 2026. Then, the field will be marked for subsequent no-till drill passes with the various treatments seeded east-west into the pasture on ten-foot intervals. The strips will include:

• Baseline mixes with no treatment
• Baseline mixes with millet
• Baseline mixes with forage collards
• Baseline mixes with sunflowers
• Baseline mixes with all three additional treatments

The treatments will be no-till drilled in May 2026 since several are warm-season species. The field will be divided into sixteen paddocks, which will also serve as replications, with at least one treatment strip in each paddock. Prior to any planting, baseline penetrometer readings (3 readings per replication) will be taken. Pigs will be introduced to the first paddock in June 2026. We will take a second penetrometer reading (5 readings per treatment) in each paddock just prior to introducing pigs. This will evaluate the ability of these various mixes to reduce compaction caused in the previous season. Additionally, just prior to introducing pigs to each pasture, a forage sample of each treatment will be taken and analyzed for quality and biomass production. This will provide insight as to which mixes provide the best balance between withstanding and alleviating compaction and forage quality and production. Pigs will be moved every 3-7 days (movement depends on weather and forage utilization). We will take a third penetrometer reading (5 readings per treatment) in each paddock after pigs are moved off that paddock. That will give 80 data points throughout an approximately 90 day period of summer pasturing. Hogs will be moved off the experimental pasture to their Fall pasture in late August/early September. A final penetrometer reading (3 readings per treatment per replication) paired with an end of the season biomass production sampling (1 sampling per treatment per replication) will provide insight as to how different mixes recover and alleviate compaction post-grazing.

Objective:

Our objective is to learn what combination of forage root systems offer the greatest resistance to compaction in hog pastures while providing high quality forage. We expect that at least some of the treatments will show less post-rotation compaction than the baseline mixs. While there is research on how different forage combinations impact animal gain, the primary conclusion from most of that research is that animals on pasture show greater gains over the same time periods compared to the same breeds in a feedlot. More small farmers want to pasture pigs for the meat quality and animal health. Our objective is to offer comprehensive data of which forage combinations offer the greatest compaction resistance and resilience throughout a growing season.