New hay field

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Down in Dixie

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Central Alabama
I am going to take on a new hay field next year but it needs some work. It's 30 ac and overgrown. It is on a deer hunting lease and they are required to cut the field every few years so its been two years since last cut. We plan on bush hogging it then burning what's left. What would you plant back for a good hay field and do you think I could just drill the seed in or would I be better to break the ground and broadcast? I believe some of the native grasses will come back ( Dallas, bahaia, fescue) but would like to ad something like a sorghum to the mix. Hit me with some of y'alls knowledge.
 
Is there any opportunity to get some use (grazing) from what is there now? Given a choice I would rather run as much as I could
through a cow before I ran it through a bushhog and burned. Of course water, fence and location are a consideration.
It's your cat to skin.
 
Had some good success zero tilling sorghum last year. If it was me I'd spray it out then burn and zero till forage oats, sorghum and hairy vetch the first year. Of course with different climate and conditions maybe something different would work better.
 
Not the best area to take cattle and graze. I'm running 20 head on 65 ac of pasture and 15 ac of woods so plenty of grass for them and I have a descent stand of fescue and rye to graze on all winter. I would really like to zero till because the prairie mud out here is hard to till. It's either to wet and sticks to everything or dry and hard as concrete.
 
My approach would depend on the dependability of the lease.
If I have it locked in for several years I would probably focus on reestablish / improving native grass. (Simply because it's the cheapest)
Year to year deal. I'm going to plow it up and drill in a annual. Haygrazer or Sudan, here.
 
I believe I will get a 3 year lease on it. Nothing in writing yet but they like the idea so far. I agree I would like to get the native grass growing good but I think I will need to drill in something like sorghum to get the tonnage before the native grasses really get to growing.
 
If you are comfortable that you can burn it, there is no need to shred it before you do. The more fuel the hotter it will burn and hot is good.
I would then see what comes up from the burn. Spray for weeds in late March/April. You might be surprised with what you have.
 
Thankfully one of the guys in the hunting club does professional vegetational control either by burning or chemical so hopefully have that covered.
 
I dont like the organic matter that goes up in smoke when burning. Really like the idea of a flail mower. But have never used one.
 
Used to have a flail mower but back in 2013 when we sold the family farm but we sold it with a bunch of other equipment. Thankfully we kept the hay equipment. Need to get some of the other equipment over to my place soon.
 
"Tall Fescue" was native to Europe and brought over in the 1800s. Ky31 was discovered (or developed) in the 1930s and became a prevalent forage across the mid-south. It is the majority of what we see in my area. In your area, I would ask the local Extension what they think. I have a friend in northern GA and his grasses vary wildly from ours.

PS...I had to look all this up because I was curious, I am nowhere near that knowledgeable.
 

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