My test plot/nursery

[Bigfoot]

This little spot is about 40' wide, and 70' long. I sprigged it last year from some random bermuda that I already had growing on my farm. I guess it's common. I don't know. I didn't do much to prepare the ground. I ran over it several times with a field cultivator. I just wanted to experiment with the process. I did a little bit of everything all at once. I sprayed it early this spring with roundup, and have hit it with 2 4d twice this year. I haven't grazed it, it is in the corner of one of my hay pens. I have bush hogged it once. it hasn't had any fertilizer. The ground is pretty rich there from years of hay storage. Cows don't like it, and just about want eat it. I am just shy of 4 inches of rain for the week. Its rained all summer. The hay field i tried to plant wrangler in this year was a total bust.

 

[Chris H]

Can you force them to eat it for a few days? A few years ago we planted turnips and the cows wouldn't eat them the first day. A couple tried them, then a few more each day until after a week they all liked them.

 

[Bigfoot]

It would be good if they acquired a taste for it. They seemed to like the little dab of wrangler that came up. This stuff just seems to be not real palatable. Does the productivity of it look like what you are used to seeing?

Scratch that. You guys in Ohio may not raise bermuda.

 

[greybeard]

I've noticed that my cows won't eat much of what I see as the best looking grass in rich soil areas, and this is especially true in the coastal I have growing on some areas where I dug and spread out rich dirt from my pond back when it dropped about 4 feet. Hard to tell what a cow sees or senses that we don't.

 

[Bigfoot]

I don't mig my pasture, I do rotate. When I turn them in on a new pasture they head for the Johnson grass first, and the honey suckle in the tree lines. Then they eat the fescue. I've always thought that if I had a rotation of just bermuda, that they would acquire a taste for it. When it is just here there and yonder in my fescue they don't touch it.

 

[Howdyjabo]

They will eat it if they have to. There is a short window where they like it.
For some reason sheep like it.
i planted it in my winter sacrificial areas.I already had it growing all over,otherwise I would never have planted it on the place. It keeps coming back every summer after being turned into a mud wallow over winter- other than that its pretty useless stuff.

 

[inyati13]

OMG, you have level land. Bigfoot, for some reason I think of you and Banjo as being from the same area, but Banjo is near Somerset. If I remember you are closer to Bowling Green. I wonder how different the pasture is where you are versus where I am. In the inner Bluegrass (Lexington Region), the landscape is so well managed, they have created a monoculture. In fact, they don't like clover and have almost no broadleaf vegetation. They don't like the horses on clover.

I am in the poor man's Bluegrass or physiographic province called the Bluegrass or Outer Bluegrass. If you google "Physiographic Regions of Kentucky" you will see them labeled (not always the same). Physiographers have divided the state by the characteristics of the surface geology which dictates the type of vegetation. The maps place Robertson county (me) in the Bluegrass that is because the whole northern part of KY is part of the Cincinnati Arch which is a classic geologic feature. It is dominated by limestone that contains a lot of minerals. One of the reasons the bluegrass is good for the husbandry of horses. You are in the Pennyroyal or Mississippian Plateau Physiographic Province.

The reason I preface with the above is that I wonder with the wonderful pasture we have, why you are even experimenting with a test plot other than for academic reasons. Is the pasture in the Pennyroyal Province significantly different from the Bluegrass Physiographic Province?


 

[Bigfoot]

Inyati,

One reason, is I would like to have enough to square bale about 600 bales a year. If I like it, when my kids get a little bigger I might do more as a project for them to make a little cash selling squares.
Believe it or not, horse hay is hard to find in my area. I am about an hour west of Bowling green.


Another is I would like to mig my cows on "some" mid July through August. Just to completely rest my fescue/stockpile some for fall. I think that I could save myself from feeding several rolls through the winter by stockpiling more fescue.

I went to a guys a couple weeks ago. He had 19 cows, looked like almost all had calves and a bull on 7.5 acres. It was divided 4 ways. The cattle had been on that same 7.5 acres most of the summer. I know this was an exceptional grass year, but that sounded pretty good to me. His stand was tifton 44. It looked a lot like my test plot as far as texture and color.

I was hoping someone with some bermuda experience could peep at my pictures and say if the production was what they would expect to see. The bush hogging set it back. I didn't remove the clippings. It seemed to smother it for a while. I should have made 2 or 3 cuttings with a discmower, and removed it.

 

[Howdyjabo]

production is not good with common Bermuda, thats why they made other varieties.
I can't tell by the picture if you have common growing or not.

 

[inyati13]

Thanks, bigfoot. You are farther west than I thought. 19 head on 7.5 acres. I should have 50 head on my 80 acres.

 

[Bigfoot]

Thanks Howdy, It looks as thick as the tifton that I went and looked at, but we have had an exceptional grass year. I haven't observed it making any seed heads. I wasn't sure if the hybreds made heads that contained seeds that weren't viable, or if they just didn't make seed at all.

Inyati,
Just guessing his place was about 90 acres total. He just had the 7.5 acres in bermuda.

 

[inyati13]

Thanks Howdy, It looks as thick as the tifton that I went and looked at, but we have had an exceptional grass year. I haven't observed it making any seed heads. I wasn't sure if the hybreds made heads that contained seeds that weren't viable, or if they just didn't make seed at all.

Inyati,
Just guessing his place was about 90 acres total. He just had the 7.5 acres in bermuda.

I should have known that. I have wondered where I can get to with my pasture. My farm is 80 acres but it is steep and if you unfolded it there is probably 100 acres of actual surface area. Of that 100 acres, probably 20 are in woods and infrastructure. Of the remaining 80, 20 acres are hay. So I have about 60 acres of productive pasture. When I get to about 20 mature cows I will be about to my carrying capacity.

 

[Banjo]

It would be good if they acquired a taste for it. They seemed to like the little dab of wrangler that came up. This stuff just seems to be not real palatable. Does the productivity of it look like what you are used to seeing?

Scratch that. You guys in Ohio may not raise bermuda.

Years like this year they don't get hungry enough to eat it much or at least mine don't. They will eat the top off a little but thats about it. but when it gets dry they will eat it.....Bermuda is probably best under continuous grazing where it is kept short.

 

[inyati13]

Bigfoot and Banjo, I don't even know if I have ever seen bermuda grass. I have heard about it for years but it may not even get up here in the bluegrass region.

 

[Banjo]

Bigfoot and Banjo, I don't even know if I have ever seen bermuda grass. I have heard about it for years but it may not even get up here in the bluegrass region.

Here it just grows in patches here and there. Spots where somebody has skinned the ground with a bushhog you will see Bermuda come up. Don't know where it came from ......not sure it native to our area. But crabgrass they say came in here from Europe with the seed being in corn or animal feed.

 

[Bigfoot]

I remember a college professor telling me years ago that our type of bermuda came in here on slave ships.

 

[Bigfoot]

I wish someone south of me with experience could look at those pics, and say defenativly if it was a bust, or is that about what it should look like.

 

[danl]

I wish someone south of me with experience could look at those pics, and say defenativly if it was a bust, or is that about what it should look like.

It looks good to me. My cows would be mowing that down. It looks like my common bermuda.

My cows eat it good when it is growing like it is now. We have had a bunch of rain, since the last half of July and first of August.