Grass to plant in shady pasture?

[Rough'n'Ready Plantation]

We have about a 30 acre field on our farm that is dominated by 100 year old cottonwood trees, but they are spread out far enough that a good bit of sunlight does get through. The soil in this field is very sandy, and the ph is about 6.0. Would bahiagrass be the best type of grass to plant in this situation?
Thanks,
Lee

 

[cypressfarms]

Bermuda would work also

 

[Campground Cattle]

Cut the fifty cent tree as it is just going to suck up fertilizer and water a mature pine pulls 55 gallons of water a day from the ground. You will never get a decent stand that will take any traffic in the shade. I tried to make one of those park pastures just ended up with errosion.

 

[cypressfarms]

Cottonwoods are nice trees, and yield some beautiful lumber. If their 100 years old, I wouldn't go cutting em all down. Maybe you could trim some of the lower limbs to allow more light through. Anyway, IMO bermuda would still work good.

 

[Beefy]

i say keep the trees, limb them or thin them, and establish some bahia. we have bahia growing under the pines but not much bermuda will grow in the shade.

 

[johndeerefarmer]

Bermuda would work also

Bermuda will not grow in the shade. Try fescue

 

[Caustic Burno]

If your pasture has so many trees there is a light problem its not a pasture thin the trees hard and put money into improvements or cows. Second what good is a Cottonwood it doesn't provide food for wildlife or humans and not even very good lumber as you will find out when you try to sell it. Now if you were talkin Peacn, Black Walnut, Black Cherry, Cherry Bark Red Oak or even Hickory is another thing but worried about Cottonwoods.

 

[Beefy]

Caustic does black cherry bring good money?

 

[Caustic Burno]

Caustic does black cherry bring good money?

It was to the mills that cut furniture and hard wood floor grade lumber.

 

[Beefy]

ive got some older ones and a lot of younger ones, trying to weigh the risk of cows eating broken limbs vs. the $$ they would bring. you dont see a lot of cherrys grown to be harvested, in fact i was wondeing if black cherry even had any commercial value.

 

[Rough'n'Ready Plantation]

Cutting down the cottonwood trees isn't really an option. I know they aren't worth much monetarily (most are so old they are hollow on the inside), but they are very pretty and sentimentally they mean a lot to me. There are some areas in this field where they are thick, and then some areas where there's almost 200 feet between them. Also, there are a good bit of cedar trees interspersed amongst the cottonwoods (but they don't shade out much, most are only 15 feet tall). I wanted this field to serve both as a pasture and as a nature area, but i guess that's a "tough row to hoe." So maybe we'll just put out grass seed in the more open parts of the field and leave the thicker parts to the trees and weeds.

 

[Rough'n'Ready Plantation]

here is a picture of the field in question... those piles are brush and junk trees that i bulldozed to open up the field some more.


http://photobucket.com/albums/e170/Bull ... efield.jpg

 

[Beefy]

bahia will do fine. let it seed out and it will spread where it can.

what kind of grass was there to begin with?

 

[Rough'n'Ready Plantation]

There was very little grass to start out with because the field used to be dominated by brush until i bulldozed it, and the goatweed would take the field over by July. What little there was was mostly bermuda.

 

[Beefy]

a combination of both is probably what you will end up with. thats great for pasture, just not what you want in a hayfield.

 

[cypressfarms]

Caustic does black cherry bring good money?

Cherry is second to walnut in price. For the tree to be worth it, though, you'd have to have a trunk at least two feet plus in diameter and a straight trunk for at least 8 feet with no branches/knots.

Caustic, I actually like working with cottonwood. It's relatively soft and easy to work for a hardwood; the only trick is to design to allow for the movement, which is large in cottonwood. It's no walnut or cherry, but it has it's uses. Pecan and hickory is not for the faint of heart.

 

[J. T.]

Bermuda would work also

Bermuda will not grow in the shade. Try fescue

Correct. Bermuda is not shade tolerant, but fescue usually won't thrive in sandy soil. Nematodes destroy it.

 

[dun]

Bermuda would work also

Bermuda will not grow in the shade. Try fescue

Correct. Bermuda is not shade tolerant, but fescue usually won't thrive in sandy soil. Nematodes destroy it.

Fescue doesn;t do that well in shade either. The only grass I've found that does well with shade is orchard grass, but with that you have a more serious problem with the heat affecting warm weather growth then you do even with fescue.

dun

 

[cypressfarms]

Bermuda would work also

Bermuda will not grow in the shade. Try fescue

Correct. Bermuda is not shade tolerant, but fescue usually won't thrive in sandy soil. Nematodes destroy it.

Fescue doesn;t do that well in shade either. The only grass I've found that does well with shade is orchard grass, but with that you have a more serious problem with the heat affecting warm weather growth then you do even with fescue.

dun

I guess it would all depend on how much sunlight the area receives during the day. In R&R's pic the front looks somewhat open, so I'm guessing that it gets sun about 1/2 the day or more. In the back of the pic the trees look much more dense, and it gets probably very little sun.

R&R, plant what you like; but I would bet that bermuda will show up in your area pretty quick (in the front area), without seeding, since you said it was there before.

 

[norriscathy]

Cottonwoods are not real long lived trees. If they've already got hollows they will probably be gone in 10 years anyway.They are very fast growing but don't last anywhere near as long as an oak. If you want pasture cut them down. Cedars are one of the worst things you can have in a pasture and almost impossible to kill. You need to deceide if you want a park or a pasture!