No Till Grass Seed

[Stocker Steve]

Buy polywire for subdivision first, then think about seed and chemicals.

 

[CattleMan1920]

Why would you not want clover? It's excellent for the soil and cattle get very fat on a good stand of clover. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

b/c he needs to spray.


i'm clearing 20 acres of brush/woods and i won't plant clover either since i'll have to spray it. i will frost seed some in the next year though

Thank you Rancher, someone can comprehend the written word. Yes, I'm going to crossbow that field, complete waste of money and seed to put in clover. I may drop some berseem (annual clover) over the winter, but my concern is it won't have an opportunity to put on any kind of stand, before I put cows out on pasture. We have a small window, April 15th to about June 15th. After that our pastures brown up or stall. This summer we have more rain than normal, field is green, but stalled out.

Now I understand better. Perspective helps.

 

[CreekAngus]

When I was still working over there I saw a number of No till seedings. Some worked great. Others not so much. Weather and competition from the existing plants are probably the biggest factors in success. I wouldn't go heavy on the oats as they will become competition for the grass you are trying to establish. The perennial rye grass should do well. Orchard does not establish easily so the competition factor would be a concern to me.

Thank you Dave for the response, you know this area well. From what I've seen orchard grass almost needs to be treated here like an annual, unless you're going to renovate the entire field. I'm going to take your suggestion and go with perennial rye. Still trying to decide if I'm going to toss some berseem out there, it will be a first for me.

I took over a field next to me there on James Road. It had been hayed and grazed into the ground. All I did was fertilize and practice rotational grazing on it. I was amazed at all the different grass species that popped up. Turned into a very productive field just by improving fertility and management.
Grass species in that area go dormant about June 21. Even if you have water to pour on the land the grass slows way down. One of the advantages of a good stand of clover is that legumes don't go through that dormant period. If you were to take a shovel and start digging right around September 1 you will start finding new root growth. New root growth will proceed top growth by about 3 weeks.

I like your idea better than mine. I will put some fertilizer on there in September, keep the cattle off and see what comes up, graze it once in April then spray 24D. Right now there are a few tansy plants out there, not much. We aren't getting killed with tansy like we did last year, don't have a single one at the home place.

 

[ClinchValley86]

Buy polywire for subdivision first, then think about seed and chemicals.

I wish you had said that to me when we started. I believe that would be the money wise way to go.

If the land were grown up, or not, I would feed hay on it as if I were grazing intensely. Tromp all the nonsense down and put good seed from the hay on top of the ground. Unrolled or not.