Hand planting coastal or russell

[circlew]

I'm gonna plant a 5 acre patch behind the house in coastal or russell next spring. I'm gonna plant it by hand. Does anyone have any suggestions for me. Looking for what and when to spray the field and any tips on collecting the tops. Thanks. :compute:

 

[Brute 23]

We planted lots of Jiggs by hand when I was young. My uncle was in the business of selling tops. He had a pretty good crew of us young guys out there. We would cut it with a cicle (sp?) cutter, rake it, and pitch fork it on/ in to trailers. Usually cut in the morning planted in the evening. Some times it got square baled. There would be 4 or 5 of us walking behind a trailer and you just grab hand fulls and start shaking out the tops on disked ground. They were coming behind us with a disk and a roller.

It was miserable but worked good.

 

[Jogeephus]

You want to be sure you spread it well and not have clumps in it.

 

[whitewing]

I planted my first bermuda in 2008. We planted by hand and it was slow and costly from a manpower standpoint thought the final results were good. It took us a few days to plant about 20 acres. Here's a shot of that process.

The following year I came across a used "broadcasting machine" and immediately bought it. It sure has made the process faster. I can plant about 4 acres in an hour's time and with far fewer people.

Final product:

 

[Brute 23]

Ya you don't want a bunch of piles. It should only take a couple people. One driver, one keeping the tops to the back for the guys spreading, get one on each corner of the trailer and maybe one in the middle. You don't want those guy walking a lot side to side. They need to be able to grab tops and shake... grab tops and shake. A good steady pace with like a tractor in a low gear works best IMO. Switch a guy walking with a guy riding or driving. We would go a couple rows and swtich... couple rows and switch. 4-5 guys total per trailer is all that is needed.