Well now what? (be prepared for some ramblings) both of my front fields by the road are flat covered up with crabgrass, johnsongrass, bermuda and some other stuff. This is about 15 acres that were all soybean stubble and bare ground this spring. My plan was to plant all of this ex-rowcrop land in fescue/orchardgrass. I was not expecting an explosion of free summer grazing.
I think I will plant about 10 acres and see how that goes, but now I have thick grass to contend with, I guess just mow it down and disc it up as best I can? That's the plan anyway, get some help by way of another disc to put behind my other tractor. I am guessing the crabgrass is going to make a comeback next spring even with fescue?
On the remaining 5 acres I am going to experiment with winter forage like turnips and ryegrass, I don't think that will effect my crabgrass and the disc-ing will probably do it good. I think it went to seed pretty well considering how much I mowed it and put the cattle on it. They don't eat the tall seedy stems anyway.
Bigfoot, how does this stuff look in the winter, does it just shrivel up and disappear or what? Don't know what to expect, this is the first thing you see as you turn down our drive, so yeah, I want it to look good as I have ulterior motives.
The cattle absolutely love this stuff, can't imagine not doing this again, and it looks great mowed out by the road. Here is a grainy picture just before dusk as I was drilling holes for the permanent fence (yeah, my phone is just that bad).