grass hay ID

[Hippie Rancher]

Hi there, haven't been around in a while so hello to anybody that remembers me! (Well, hello to y'ALL, but you know what I mean ;-) )

somebody lost a big square bale of this stuff and we are in the process of doing our civic duty and cleaning it up off the side of the road :santa:

I know what bermuda, timothy, oat, barley, alfalfa, and sudan grass look like but don't know what this is. Could it be fescue? stems are 2 to 2.5 feet long, finer than sudan although the smell is similar.

any ideas?

 

[Hippie Rancher]

rye?

 

[1982vett]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

 

[hayray]

I second the ryegrass. Yeah I remember ya, haven't seen you post in a year or more.

 

[fargus]

Probably ryegrass. Could also be twitch (or as the rest of the world knows it, quackgrass.) Tough to tell from a picture, but nobody plants twitch, so I'll third the ryegrass.

 

[novaman]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

Does it have decent feed value? I've been toying with the idea of putting some winter rye in this coming fall. Take it off mid-May and follow it up with my corn for silage.

 

[Angus Cowman]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

Does it have decent feed value? I've been toying with the idea of putting some winter rye in this coming fall. Take it off mid-May and follow it up with my corn for silage.

Nova
I don't know anything about Rye Grass but I plant quite a bit of winter rye and bale it every yr and I love it,has produced between 4-5 tons of hay per acre the last few yrs
fixin to turn some 1st calf pairs on some that I don't bale and let them run there until weaning and then I will turn the calves out on it after weaning
Dang deer have kept it mowed pretty good this yr
I plant the Cool-Grazer rye

 

[BC]

Looks like ryegrass to me. From the pictures, it looks like real good ryegrass hay. Have seen some put up like the picture and at the right stage that tested in the high teens to low 20's on crude protein.

Ryegrass and winter rye are two seperate species. Rye is a cereal plant like wheat and oats.

 

[1982vett]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

Does it have decent feed value? I've been toying with the idea of putting some winter rye in this coming fall. Take it off mid-May and follow it up with my corn for silage.

Works good down here Nova. We get better early grazing out of oats, but the ryegrass will go longer into the spring so we usually put about 10 lbs and acre worth of seed in with the oats when we plant. Usually reseeds itself pretty good in the pastures, except this year I guess the seed bank is depeted from the last two years of drought. Makes good hay, earlier you cut the better the protien but harder to get cured before getting rained on.

http://overton.tamu.edu/ryegrass/Grazin ... egrass.pdf

 

[Kingfisher]

rye?

Good morning Hippie. Where is that picture sourced from? Thanks in advance.

 

[dun]

Tons of pictures and data
http://plants.usda.gov/

 

[shorty]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

Does it have decent feed value? I've been toying with the idea of putting some winter rye in this coming fall. Take it off mid-May and follow it up with my corn for silage.

The stuff in the picture is ryegrass, the winter rye you are thinking of planting in fall is grain rye which is different from what is in the picture , I plant some every year and cut in may to put up as balage . It has it's best feed value just as the heads come out but it's harder to dry for hay at that stage that's why we wrap it at high moisture. Protein drops as it matures especially after it blooms , but then it's easier to dry as hay . I've had some at 16% protein when it was cut young and as low as 11% cut later .

 

[Hippie Rancher]

Hi Kingfisher,
I was naughty and hotlinked it from a google image search - right click and hit properties, you will see it seems to be from some alpaca site. :hat:

 

[pdfangus]

that looks like ryegrass to me as well.

both cereal rye and Ryegrass make good early feed. In our country rye usually needs harvest right at the time of year that weather cooperates least. More goes to silage than hay here.

I ususally recommend ryegrass in new pasture mixes expecially for newer producers and horse folk cause it will come up easy.

One caution with ryegrass.
If you have small grain producers nearby......ryegrass is a serious weed that is hard to control for them. excellent forage but a weed in wheat or barley especially if you have some seed producers nearby.

don't want to cause no shooting wars.

 

[1982vett]

That is ryegrass. Good stuff.

Does it have decent feed value? I've been toying with the idea of putting some winter rye in this coming fall. Take it off mid-May and follow it up with my corn for silage.

The stuff in the picture is ryegrass, the winter rye you are thinking of planting in fall is grain rye which is different from what is in the picture , I plant some every year and cut in may to put up as balage . It has it's best feed value just as the heads come out but it's harder to dry for hay at that stage that's why we wrap it at high moisture. Protein drops as it matures especially after it blooms , but then it's easier to dry as hay . I've had some at 16% protein when it was cut young and as low as 11% cut later .

Yes.

Cereal Rye - Secale Cereale

Ryegrass - Lolium Multifloura

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo ... nw/pnw501/
http://www.noble.org/Ag/Forage/AnnualRy ... index.html
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag104