Let seed lay, or disc it in?

[luke03cr]

After finishing up our hay harvest for the year last week, i took a few days this weekend to plant some more fescue seed for our thin hay stand. I planted roughly 600 lbs of KY31 on about 23 ac that we just finished cutting for hay. I know that the no till drill is the preferred method of planting, but it was not avaliable from our local coop at the time. My ? is, should i go over all the fields with a disc, or can i let the seed lay and let the rain take care of putting it into the ground, and expect decent results?

 

[Anonymous]

What's the field have in it now?

 

[skyhightree1]

Luke,
I personally think lightly discing your pasture would be good if you can't drill it. I just planted a problem spot on a newly rented pasture I set the disc to go in about 2 inchesenough to get dirt on most of my seeds. if left on the ground birds have a free buffet on your dime.

 

[luke03cr]

What's the field have in it now?

its mostly a mix of johnsongrass, dallisgrass and fescue. im just wanting to get a stronger stand of fescue built up for future hay harvests

 

[Bigfoot]

A light discing would probably help, but I can't tell it helps more than a good slow soaking rain. I've been kinda spraying 2 4 d aggressively on my thin fescue, and it's done more to thicken itself up than seeding over has done in the past. I estimate I have between 5 and 6 dollars per acre per application. You put down 25 pounds of seed to the acre. That's about right for over seeding. Even at that a lOt want come up, and a lot will die out. I really had better luck killing the weeds, and letting the fescue seed out, and spread itself. Not practical on hay I know.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know about those grasses but some benefit from a light disk.it woul be better to not let the birds have at it

 

[luke03cr]

Luke,
I personally think lightly discing your pasture would be good if you can't drill it. I just planted a problem spot on a newly rented pasture I set the disc to go in about 2 inchesenough to get dirt on most of my seeds. if left on the ground birds have a free buffet on your dime.

OK, thats probly what i will end up doing this weekend then when the ground dries up a bit from this heavy rain. was just hoping that heavy rain would be enough to push it lightly into the soil since the planting depth for tall fescue in only 1/4 of an inch. If i set disc at 1 or 2 inches will that be too deep for these new seedlings?

 

[luke03cr]

A light discing would probably help, but I can't tell it helps more than a good slow soaking rain. I've been kinda spraying 2 4 d aggressively on my thin fescue, and it's done more to thicken itself up than seeding over has done in the past. I estimate I have between 5 and 6 dollars per acre per application. You put down 25 pounds of seed to the acre. That's about right for over seeding. Even at that a lOt want come up, and a lot will die out. I really had better luck killing the weeds, and letting the fescue seed out, and spread itself. Not practical on hay I know.

So would it be a good decision to spray about 1-1.5 pints per acre of 2-4d in the fields to help combate the cool season weeds to give the stand a better start?

 

[Banjo]

You could turn some cattle in on it for a few days and tromp it in.

 

[luke03cr]

You could turn some cattle in on it for a few days and tromp it in.

Thats a no can do for most of the fields i seeded. I would have to transport them across a major hiway and put up fences in these fields. But i could do that for 1 of those fields, and that maybe something il do. I was going to use said field for stockpiling, but i have enough hay and getting a good stand growing in this field is important. Thanks

 

[Bigfoot]

A light discing would probably help, but I can't tell it helps more than a good slow soaking rain. I've been kinda spraying 2 4 d aggressively on my thin fescue, and it's done more to thicken itself up than seeding over has done in the past. I estimate I have between 5 and 6 dollars per acre per application. You put down 25 pounds of seed to the acre. That's about right for over seeding. Even at that a lOt want come up, and a lot will die out. I really had better luck killing the weeds, and letting the fescue seed out, and spread itself. Not practical on hay I know.

So would it be a good decision to spray about 1-1.5 pints per acre of 2-4d in the fields to help combate the cool season weeds to give the stand a better start?

Just my experience unless weeds are on their way up so to speak 2 4 d doesn't do to well. I was talking about spraying in the spring. I have a 50 gallon sprayer. I'm going to build a 300 gallon pull behind this winter. I had good results with my applications this year. Even with the drought. I had improvement. Maybe with a 300 gallon I can get over everything.

 

[skyhightree1]

Luke,
I personally think lightly discing your pasture would be good if you can't drill it. I just planted a problem spot on a newly rented pasture I set the disc to go in about 2 inchesenough to get dirt on most of my seeds. if left on the ground birds have a free buffet on your dime.

OK, thats probly what i will end up doing this weekend then when the ground dries up a bit from this heavy rain. was just hoping that heavy rain would be enough to push it lightly into the soil since the planting depth for tall fescue in only 1/4 of an inch. If i set disc at 1 or 2 inches will that be too deep for these new seedlings?

luke,
I have always done my pastures like this its not gonna take the pasture down to pure dirt. Look at my post from today theres links to some pics in there. If you want more pics of my pastures pm me and I will send you those links so you can see what lightly discing does.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=79485

 

[greybeard]

About 1/2 the time I leave any seed just layin on top of the ground, a gully wahser comes and washes it all down into low spots.

 

[luke03cr]

Last night i was rumaging threw the old wooded part of the barnlot, and came across an old cultipacker, from back in papaws time i rekon. So i hooked it up and drug it threw the front field to see if it was usable, and it turns out to work fine. So, i did sum research and found out the uses for this thing. My ? is have yal used 1 after your discing, or without discing? Severel people seemed to be connecting the cultipacker to the back of a disc and using them at same time? Seems like a real efficent use of time and fuel. Any1 have any advice on this? If i can fig out how to connect them together then i will attempt to do my fields this way

 

[skyhightree1]

Luke in my personal opinion the cultipacker works best in bare dirt fields where you have disced it and leveled it off. I will never use a cultipacker on anything but bare dirt seeding and even then I still prefer to use my disc to cover the seeds lightly. Cultipacker on disc is useless to me....

 

[M.Magis]

I just a short piece of chain to hook mine together. I think some disks have a hitch hole in the rear for that purpose, but the ones I've seen have been drag disks, mines a 3pt so I use the chain. I agree that a cultipacker is only useful on disked soil. I do like to disk in large seeds, but I also like the added benefits of the cultipacker, particularly reduced washouts and moisture retention. If I can get them both done in one pass, I think it's worth it. If it took two passes with the tractor, I would probably skip the packer.

 

[luke03cr]

Alrite, well then il start dicsing in the seed this weekend when the ground dries up a bit. Thanks for all the advise yal

 

[skyhightree1]

luke I took a lil sample of what my lightly discing in seeds looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07zb4jG-BdQ&feature=plcp

 

[luke03cr]

luke I took a lil sample of what my lightly discing in seeds looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07zb4jG-BdQ&feature=plcp

Alrite, thanks i appriciate the video. I just need it to dry up a bit from the 48hrs of straight rain weve had.

 

[skyhightree1]

Gotcha.. We are getting our 48 hrs of rain now .. I am glad i caught the rain right on time seeing as i planted saturday.