2nd cutting for Fescue in Alabama

[Nowland Farms]

Guys, from my earlier post you saw were I just cut my MaxQ fescue and got about 30 tons of hay from 13.5 acres. My question is if I should hit the fescue with another round of fertlizer and try to get another cutting in a month or so before the fescue goes semi dormant during the hot weather in July - Sept because it is a cool season grass. Or should I wait until Sept and then fertlize it to try to get a cutting in October as the fall growth period begins? October is usually our dryest month.

I have enough hay now and want to make sure the ladies have green grass to eat way up into February like they did this year when I pulled them of the fescue to prepare for my spring cutting.

I am leaning toward hitting the fescue with fertlizer now since we are getting plenty of rain and usually do throught July.

Comments and opinions appreciated.

 

[dun]

If you fertilize it now and graze or cut it short by august you can stockpile some high quality winter forage. I lean towards just grazing it now without fertilization then hit it with around 60 lbs of N in august. At the cost of N these days and the possibility of not having enough moisture in the long term I'ld be leery of trying for a second cutting. Rain is what makes a farmer look like a genius or an idiot and it's all up to Ma Nature. Application of chemical fertilizers will decrease the ph. That's also part of the reason for not applying fertilizers more frequent then is required.
Just some rambling thoughts.

dun

 

[NorCalFarms]

Application of chemical fertilizers will decrease the ph. That's also part of the reason for not applying fertilizers more frequent then is required.
Just some rambling thoughts.

dun

Not saying you are wrong-technically that is true-but we have some very high ph soils, we do all we can to lower them. Anything you do is short lived at best. A couple hundred pounds of fertilizer applied to the thousands of tons of topsoil in one acre isn't in real life going to hurt you. We put 4 tons of gypsum/acre on one place 7 years ago when we seeded it to grass hay. The ph was 8.1 before application. This year we are planting it to alfalfa and took another test-ph was 8.1.

 

[dun]

Application of chemical fertilizers will decrease the ph. That's also part of the reason for not applying fertilizers more frequent then is required.
Just some rambling thoughts.

dun

Not saying you are wrong-technically that is true-but we have some very high ph soils, we do all we can to lower them. Anything you do is short lived at best. A couple hundred pounds of fertilizer applied to the thousands of tons of topsoil in one acre isn't in real life going to hurt you. We put 4 tons of gypsum/acre on one place 7 years ago when we seeded it to grass hay. The ph was 8.1 before application. This year we are planting it to alfalfa and took another test-ph was 8.1.

And we have the opposite situation. Without applications of lime every couple of years, even without fertilizing the ph will drop to 5.0 or lower.
I know that around Oakdale we never had to problem with ph. Never checked it since stuffgrew almost too well. But we didn;t have fescue there either.

dun