New Pasture Seeding info

[csutton]

I am planning on planting a new pasture in Bermuda grass this coming spring. Will it be ok to sling both bermuda and rye at the same time or should I wait and plant rye grass in the fall? Should I wait a year or two for it to establish before planting rye for the winter? Also, what kind of prep do most of yall do before planting? I.E. Plowing, spraying, etc. Thanks in advance.

 

[hillrancher]

We usually sprig, if we sow spray with roundup and mix with fertilizer after it is up and starting to run put chicken litter on it heavy. Have had good luck.

I would not plant anything with it. For the first year or so needs no competition.

 

[cowtrek]

No don't plant anything with it, and unless it's thicker than hair on a dog's back I wouldn't plant any ryegrass on it the fall after planting it either. Bermudagrass seed is very small and very expensive. Because it's a small seed it doesn't need any competition coming up, especially from ryegrass which grows pretty aggressively. Because it's expensive you don't want it to have much competition either unless you like wasting money. Of course with seeded varieties you are pretty much limited to improved varieties of common bermuda, which most WILL revert back to common at SOME point. Giant bermuda is a good example...

Sprigs are the only way to get true hybrids, but like a mule they cannot reproduce by seed; they are sterile. Sprigs are a little more work but depending on what you want to do and how much you want to spend afterward can be more than worth it. Not that seeded bermudas don't have their place, but they ain't exactly cheap either...

As Jogee pointed out on here, don't plant the longer season (higher yielding) ryegrasses on bermuda pastures as they tend to hang around later in the spring (giving more time to produce more grass, hence the higher yield) and tend to cut into your bermuda production because of shading/competition, especially on bermudas that green up early. It can set them back a decent bit...

Hope this helps and good luck! OL JR

 

[Capt Call]

I am planning on planting a new pasture in Bermuda grass this coming spring. Will it be ok to sling both bermuda and rye at the same time or should I wait and plant rye grass in the fall? Should I wait a year or two for it to establish before planting rye for the winter? Also, what kind of prep do most of yall do before planting? I.E. Plowing, spraying, etc. Thanks in advance.

Be sure that all chance of frost is past if you are planting common. We usually lightly disc and drag after broadcasting a new field. Common makes good pasture quick. Be careful spaying the new growth until established as you can burn it pretty bad. Also do not use Grazon the first year this gives all the seed time to germinate. You have to be careful with grazon on common anyway as conditions have to be just right for it to seed, using Grazon over time can actually make your stand diminish.

 

[grannysoo]

We sprig ours. Don't give it any competition until it's ready for it.......

 

[OhioRiver]

Do you not just get rid of the other grass first and reseed.

We sprig ours. Don't give it any competition until it's ready for it.......

 

[OhioRiver]

What is sprig?

We usually sprig, if we sow spray with roundup and mix with fertilizer after it is up and starting to run put chicken litter on it heavy. Have had good luck.

I would not plant anything with it. For the first year or so needs no competition.

 

[cowtrek]

What is sprig?

We usually sprig, if we sow spray with roundup and mix with fertilizer after it is up and starting to run put chicken litter on it heavy. Have had good luck.

I would not plant anything with it. For the first year or so needs no competition.

In my post above I mentioned that hybrid bermudas are sterile; they do not produce viable seed (actually a TINY percentage of the seed IS viable, but it is such a small amount that you would have to plant probably well over a hundred pounds to the acre to establish any kind of stand from seed, and 3-5 pounds per acre is probably over $30/acre in seed cost (bermuda seed yields are pretty small and the seed are tiny and pretty low growing, so harvesting is difficult and you still need a pretty decent amount of seed per acre on new plantings, so the seed is pretty high compared to a lot of grasses), so you can begin to see why hybrid bermuda seed does not exist) Hybrid bermudas, like a mule (cross between a horse and a donkey) is sterile and cannot reproduce on it's own. Therefore, to establish new fields of hybrid bermudas, you dig 'sprigs' consisting of pieces of stem and root pieces using a special digging machine and then plant them in the field you're sprigging, with either a disk or a specialized planter designed for the purpose. You can also cut the bermuda top growth with a hay mower and then plant that either by hand and disking it in and roller packing it thoroughly, or with a specialized planter. This is called planting "tops". The idea is that the sprigs or tops form new roots at the stem joints that are in good firm contact with moist soil and then grow a new plant from the joint. Technically speaking, sprigging is actually cloning, since you are creating a genetically identical new plant(plants, plural) from a part of the original 'donor' plant.

There are other plants besides bermuda that can be or are propagated from plant parts. The ones that pop into my mind the fastest are perennial peanuts and of course potatoes, planted from potatoe chunks with eyes on them.

I've read that Texas A&M is working on hybrid bermudas that WILL produce viable seed, but I haven't heard much about it lately, and I'm sure if they were having some exciting results close to producing a marketable product that you'd hear quite a bit about it by now...

Hope this helps! OL JR

 

[mack]

What is sprig?


A sprig can basically be two things

1. a plant that has been cut off at the top of the ground - a piece of bermuda "hay" that is fresh cut

2. a bermuda plant that has been dug and contains some root material

With bermuda, anywhere a "joint" contacts the ground, it will sprout a root and develop a stolon that creeps along the ground. The folks down south have a pretty good supply of sprigs available in several different varieties (correct me if I'm wrong guys). Here in KY or S IN we are very limited and use a lot of seeded varieties... but then we can use the top growth form that to use as our own sprigs to make new stands.

clear as mud??

 

[mack]

sorry cowtrek... you must have posted while I was typing. Didnt mean to step on ya.

 

[cowtrek]

sorry cowtrek... you must have posted while I was typing. Didnt mean to step on ya.

No prob... surprised to hear that yall are growing bermuda in S. Indiana. Whereabouts?? My wife is from N. In. up near Warsaw, but her mom's family is all down near Spencer, between Bloomington and Terre Haute. Where are yall at?? We're down in TX just west of Houston. Planning on heading up that way in a couple weeks when school lets out for Christmas break.

Take it easy! OL JR