Looking for hayfield advice

[Chicks for Days]

New to ranching and looking for some advice.
We live in Walker Co., TX. Very sandy soil. We have a small ranch (little over 50 acres) that has some woods and some pastures that we want to graze horses and mow/bale. Currently in bahia grass.

Wanting to rid a pasture of sand burrs and also change over to jigs.
Any suggestions?

 

[tex452]

I planted jigs on some heavy soil and it done good, I have coastal and tifton on another place that has sandy loam it does good as well.
You will have to kill the weeds first, then keep them clean and well fertilized, chicken litter helps

 

[Brute 23]

New to ranching and looking for some advice.
We live in Walker Co., TX. Very sandy soil. We have a small ranch (little over 50 acres) that has some woods and some pastures that we want to graze horses and mow/bale. Currently in bahia grass.

Wanting to rid a pasture of sand burrs and also change over to jigs.
Any suggestions?

Post your question in the grasses pastures and hay section and it will probably get more traffic.

There is more than one way to go at this. There are methods where you basically round up every thing the year before and kill it. Then start your disk work and plant in the spring. That's probably the right way.

Then you can poor boy it and start disking multiple times late summer and fall and kill what you kill. Then you plant and worry about spraying out what the jiggs doesn't choke out.

Either way jiggs is a good choice for sandy soil. Be ready to apply fert and herb every single year to maintain it.

 

[dcarp]

Spraying with Pastora will give you 2 for 1. It is effective against grass burrs & Bahia. Then put in the grass of your choice.

 

[Warren Allison]

I planted jigs on some heavy soil and it done good, I have coastal and tifton on another place that has sandy loam it does good as well.
You will have to kill the weeds first, then keep them clean and well fertilized, chicken litter helps

What is "jigs"?

 

[Brute 23]

What is "jigs"?

It's a bermuda you plant with tops like coastal or tifton.

 

[Warren Allison]

It's a bermuda you plant with tops like coastal or tifton.

Ok. I will have to look that variety up. Is it planted or sprigged?

 

[Brute 23]

Ok. I will have to look that variety up. Is it planted or sprigged?

Sprig

 

[tex452]

What is "jigs"?

 

[Warren Allison]

Thanks, Tex!!

 

[Brute 23]

Jiggs is easy to establish like coastal but produces more. Tifton will outperform the other two but can be slow to establish. A lot of people like the coastal/ jiggs for hay or horses because of the smaller stem.

I get a twitch talking about jiggs. We planted a lot of acres when I was young, by hand.

 

[Caustic Burno]

New to ranching and looking for some advice.
We live in Walker Co., TX. Very sandy soil. We have a small ranch (little over 50 acres) that has some woods and some pastures that we want to graze horses and mow/bale. Currently in bahia grass.

Wanting to rid a pasture of sand burrs and also change over to jigs.
Any suggestions?

Embrace the Bahia as it is the grass of east Texas.
You will go broke trying to get rid of it. Spend your money on fertilizer instead.
Every bird that flies over your pasture will be crapping Bahia seed and 99% of the hay you buy out of east Texas will have Bahia seed in it.
The only grass I have seen in decades that will beat it and smother it is Red River Crab grass if you can get it established.
I am at the end of this journey and after several decades and several small fortunes I realized Mother Nature is going to win and is much cheaper to embrace. You would be cheaper buying hay for the burners in the long run.

 

[greybeard]

My experience in E. Texas and small hayfields is finding someone to cut and bale it.
Hay equipment is expensive and hay folks would much rather cut a big field than try to move in on a small field, even on a share basis.

The real $$ IMO, is in small sq bales to sell to the hobby horse crowd. The bales I once bought for$3/bale were going for $15 and up last I checked, and that was in a non-drought year. But, not many sq balers running down in San Jac county nowadays.

Pay attention to Walker County ag exemption rules since you have a mixed property of woods and open space. If they haven't already gone to requiring 75% of the ag exemption land be open space for cattle production, it's coming. San Jacinto county went that route in 2021 and had begun to enforce it before I left in 2022.

 

[dcarp]

If you want pasture Bahia will be fine. If you want hay use something else. 60% of Bahia's protein content is in the bottom 3 inches of the plant, so no matter how tall it grows you will only get 40% of the plant's protein.

 

[Ridgetop]

Embrace the Bahia as it is the grass of east Texas.

We have Bahia and Bermuda mixed in different areas. We are in northeast Texas and have a small place - 44 acres.