Steve Wilson
Well-known member
Dun's "You can never tell" post got me to wondering. Some may recall my saga last spring with the pasture we refer to as The Out Back. The one that caused me to spend a fortune rebuilding the borrowed field sprayer, just to get it in operational condition to spray that pasture. It is a long neglected pasture that had become mostly weeds and blackberries. I mowed it that previous summer, for the second year in a row. Just to knock the weeds down and try to get some grass to grow.
Anyway, last September we lightly disked a portion of it and seeded it with OG, Timothy and forage turnips. Lack of rainfall resulted in nothing but a fair amount of the turnips sprouting up until we just got tired of checking on it back in about early November. When I was back there spraying in May, I noticed quite a bit of OG and Timothy was up. The sheep had managed to slither through the fence someplace and were all congregated there. After spraying with Grazon, the ironweed turned its lips up and exposed a thick stand of cheat grass just about everywhere. The OG and Timothy is still there, where we planted it, but man is that cheat ever thick there and everywhere else.
I was cautioned by members here not to get too eager to reseed the pasture this coming spring, because the Grazon residual may still be strong enough to result in a thin stand, and that clovers may not sprout at all. The haybeans we planted in another pasture were cut and baled this week. This coming weekend or next, I will be disking that field and broadcasting grass seed and fertilizer. I'm thinking to hit a portion of the Out Back with the disk too and sling some wheat on it, as a check to see if the Grazon has broken down enough yet to allow grass type plants to grow.
My question is, is there anything I can do from a management point to reduce the amount of cheat grass? Or do I just have to wait until I am able to reseed the pasture with desired species?
Many thanks,
Anyway, last September we lightly disked a portion of it and seeded it with OG, Timothy and forage turnips. Lack of rainfall resulted in nothing but a fair amount of the turnips sprouting up until we just got tired of checking on it back in about early November. When I was back there spraying in May, I noticed quite a bit of OG and Timothy was up. The sheep had managed to slither through the fence someplace and were all congregated there. After spraying with Grazon, the ironweed turned its lips up and exposed a thick stand of cheat grass just about everywhere. The OG and Timothy is still there, where we planted it, but man is that cheat ever thick there and everywhere else.
I was cautioned by members here not to get too eager to reseed the pasture this coming spring, because the Grazon residual may still be strong enough to result in a thin stand, and that clovers may not sprout at all. The haybeans we planted in another pasture were cut and baled this week. This coming weekend or next, I will be disking that field and broadcasting grass seed and fertilizer. I'm thinking to hit a portion of the Out Back with the disk too and sling some wheat on it, as a check to see if the Grazon has broken down enough yet to allow grass type plants to grow.
My question is, is there anything I can do from a management point to reduce the amount of cheat grass? Or do I just have to wait until I am able to reseed the pasture with desired species?
Many thanks,