Crabgrass

[Banjo]

crabgrass seems to need the ground to be stirred. Does anybody do anything to encourage crabgrass germination like dragging a grass harrow over your fields in the spring?

 

[simme]

crabgrass seems to need the ground to be stirred. Does anybody do anything to encourage crabgrass germination like dragging a grass harrow over your fields in the spring?

Around here crabgrass appears without any help. As dependable as fire ants and ground hogs. It seems to show up much better and earlier in the pasture or hay fields in thin stands of permanent grass. A thick stand of fescue or bermuda here won't have much crabgrass. Stirring the ground will put it in turbo mode. It can make do on most any amount of moisture.

 

[BC]

In East Texas, the way to manage for crabgrass is to let it go to seed in the early fall and then lightly disk and seed ryegrass. The secret is to lightly disturb the soil.

 

[Allenw]

Can it be frost seeded like clover or with clover or should i wait on up in the spring?

I've heard of people spreading it with fertlizer when topdressing wheat in the spring so I would say spreading when you frost seed should work.

 

[BFE]

Overgraze fescue in early spring and the crabgrass will come. Heavy hoof action is enough disturbance. No one has ever seeded it around here but it's always in abundance as long as the fescue is thin.

Cattle don't like it after frost because it's an annual. Perennials like fescue are much better for stockpile. The only annual besides corn I've seen be successful is foxtail.

 

[Texasmark]

We graze crabgrass all summer really puts the bloom on the cows going into calving season. We actually planted a couple of fields in the past few years after seeing how good the volunteer stuff was. Never had it tested with anything but the eye test which it passed with flying colors.


Gizmom

"Never had it tested with anything but the eye test which it passed with flying colors." You talking about Pink Eye with Herefords?

 

[anewcomer]

Does anybody on this board know who RL Dalrymple is?

 

[Dirt Farmer]

Contact RL Dalrymple in Ardmore, Ok. He invented crabgrass!

I bought some from his grandson a couple years ago. They were in Thomas at the time. They both seem like good people.

 

[Dirt Farmer]

Does anybody on this board know who RL Dalrymple is?

He came up with Red River Crabgrass.

http://redrivercrabgrass.com/index.html

 

[anewcomer]

Thank you, Dirt Farmer. Contacting him would answer all the OP's questions and eliminate all the conventional wisdom and old wives tales being posted. Go to the source. He would be glad to help.

 

[DCB4]

My fescue has has largely been replaced by crabgrass. Partially from over grazing, and partially due to a few droughts/dry spells. Seems like when the drought breaks, the crabgrass out performs the fescue. My place is largely a crabgrass operation. Only down side I see, is how late in the spring it comes. I guess the stars lined up perfectly this year, and it was really really late. It also doesn't stockpile well. I like to broadcast wheat on it. Fills that spring slump.

Bigfoot I'm wanting to get some of my pasture into a wheat/crabgrass rotation. What time of year do you shoot for broadcasting your wheat? Do you always broadcast as opposed to drilling?

 

[Bigfoot]

My fescue has has largely been replaced by crabgrass. Partially from over grazing, and partially due to a few droughts/dry spells. Seems like when the drought breaks, the crabgrass out performs the fescue. My place is largely a crabgrass operation. Only down side I see, is how late in the spring it comes. I guess the stars lined up perfectly this year, and it was really really late. It also doesn't stockpile well. I like to broadcast wheat on it. Fills that spring slump.

Bigfoot I'm wanting to get some of my pasture into a wheat/crabgrass rotation. What time of year do you shoot for broadcasting your wheat? Do you always broadcast as opposed to drilling?

I was roundupping some pasture yesterday, and wished I had already done it. I hope to be sowing some in a couple of weeks. I have sowed it much later and had success as well. I have a 500 pound seeder for the back of my tractor, and just use that. Never disturb or drag the ground. I may be the luckiest man alive, but always have success that way. I should add, I do it the day before a rain. Tried oats that way once, and got a poor stand.

If there is another cool season growing in conjunction with it, the other cool season will trump the wheat. Works for me in a warm season, or on killed vegetation.

I also sometimes put up a creep gate, and let fall born calves graze in it.

 

[rockroadseminole]

We planted "quick and big spreader" variety purchased from Dalrymple under a pivot. He's a ton of help! For us it was like better quality millet with a little longer growing season. I followed protocol and disc'd in the leftovers in the fall. I noticed that I had some pusley coming on as the crabgrass was backing off. Crazy thing happened in year two: I planted a lower rate of crabgrass no-till into rye stubble. Crabgrass exploded but pusley doubled. This summer was year three. I ran a disc in the late spring to clean up some excess stubble and it went to raining. Before I knew it I had a heck of a stand of crabgrass and pusley. Never hooked up the planter. The field looks more like a pusley field with crabgrass in it now. Cows love it. People think I'm nuts putting fertilizer on pusley and crabgrass on irrigated acres, but I think I've hit the jackpot.
Moral of the story is crabgrass is awesome, but pusley is on another level.

 

[anewcomer]

Thanks for the post, Seminole. I thought nobody was listening. I'm sure you know you don't have to reseed every year. Just let the grass go to seed sometime in the growing season. Then some tillage, fall or spring, will give you excellent results. What is pulsey?

 

[rockroadseminole]

I was too big of a chicken and couldn't afford to be wrong to go full volunteer! As far as pusley goes, it's a weed.

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/AG/AG32000.pdf

Check out page 16, 17: https://aurora.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/11200/2495/1756BULL.pdf;sequence=1

 

[anewcomer]

Good stuff! Thanks. It'll come back if you let it go to seed once in the growing season and do some tillage once a year.

 

[Allenw]

Contact RL Dalrymple in Ardmore, Ok. He invented crabgrass!

Invented crabgrass when?

It's been growing here for years and everyone tried to control it. You poor guys buying seed and we kill it a couple or three times before letting it grow just to thin it enough so it can do good. Grows good on my notill ground with no extra work involved.