best way to sow brome?

[George Monk]

I had some OG that froze out and then I made a mistake and grazed it too hard over the winter and early spring and basically lost all of the grass in the field. I was thinking of switching from OG to brome but I haven't had much luck in the past getting brome to sprout. What do you feel is the best way to get brome started? What time of year is the best? I would like to use no-till.
thanks
George

 

[bandit80]

I had some OG that froze out and then I made a mistake and grazed it too hard over the winter and early spring and basically lost all of the grass in the field. I was thinking of switching from OG to brome but I haven't had much luck in the past getting brome to sprout. What do you feel is the best way to get brome started? What time of year is the best? I would like to use no-till.
thanks
George

My best experience sowing brome has not been from no-till. I re-established brome a few years ago in a portion of one of my pastures by doing the following. Sprayed the existing grass/weeds in April to kill everything. Planted sudex in early May so I wouldn't lose a year of grazing. Worked the ground in early September after sudex was done for the year. Seeded the brome, and then drilled wheat at a very light rate, I think I did about 30 lbs/acre. The wheat holds the soil while the brome develops it's roots. The following spring I grazed after the wheat had headed out. Most of the brome at that time was thigh high, and some was headed out as well. To this day it is the best stand and highest producing brome I have.

My father just sowed some brome and ran his turbo-till over a couple times. Lucky and got some real good rains on it shortly after, and it came up great.

 

[dun]

The issues I've had with Brome is that it doesn;t meter well through a drill and it's hard to get it pplanted shallow enough. You want it just barely into the surface of the soil. The tradtional 1/4 depth is too deep.
A no-till drill with the WSG feature works well for the metering, it's the depth that is the real problem.

 

[lucky7chief]

Dun is right. The two issues that cause problems are getting it to feed out of the drill and making sure you don't plant to shallow. We had success with our old drill (1956? John Deere Van Brunt). It has an agitator and we opened it all the way. Others have had success spreading it on and dragging it in. Draggng a cedar tree works well. You need to increase the amount of seed when broadcasting. The local SWCD has a drill with the warm season box. That should work too. We always use wheat as a cover crop when planting grass and cut it for hay in the spring. Also, the best time to plant is in the fall. Spring plantings have too much weed pressure.

 

[George Monk]

thanks for the info

I had a friend tell me one of the best ways to grind and mix some corn with the brome to get it to carry out of the drill. Can't bring myself to do that at todays prices!

 

[Stocker Steve]

Traditional method is to mix oats with brome and seed through a grain drill. Not a great approach but it does not plug up the drill.
I have broadcasted brome in a mix several times and ended up with a very low percentage of brome in the stand. It is slow to germinate and does not seem to compet well.
Because of the size brome is a very expensive per seed. How about fesuce or Reed' canary grass instead???

 

[George Monk]

I am trying to stay away from fescue because of the endophyte. I have a friend who says fescue never made a turd but it can sure push one out. I feel there are better choices. Reed canary seems better suited for loam soil and I am dealing with shallow clay. I hear that cows may not eat the reed canary when it gets too mature???

 

[dun]

I am trying to stay away from fescue because of the endophyte. I have a friend who says fescue never made a turd but it can sure push one out. I feel there are better choices. Reed canary seems better suited for loam soil and I am dealing with shallow clay. I hear that cows may not eat the reed canary when it gets too mature???

Depending on the part of MO, about the only really viable options for grass is Orchard Grass which doesn;t provide a lot of fall regrowth, Switch Grass which has palatability issues when it gets a little mature, Brome which doesn;t get hardly any regrowth, or Fescue that has endophyte issues. The only one that is easily overcome is the fescue and the endophyte. Interseeding (frost seeding) clover into the fescue will take care of most of the endophyte problems. I originally hated fescue, was going to get rid of it all and plant real grass. I now don;t love the stuff, but I sure do like it. If itwasn;t for KY31 there wouldnt be much of a beef industry in MO.