new way of watering

[plbcattle]

I am trying to get 2 (10 )acre pastures of Cheyenne bermudagrass going. We haven't seen rain in about 6 weeks. I was going to seed the pastures and fill up my 250 gallon sprayer and go over them 4 or 5 times each with water. I was wondering if this will help them get established or am I just wasting my time. I feel that just this little amount of water might help them get off and going.

 

[Bama]

Kinda like peeing in the ocean. It don't raise the water level up much. It would take a bunch of tankfulls to make any differance on 20 acres. You would spend way more in fuel than the seeds were worth. I sowed some bermuda about three weeks ago, I havn't had any rain since. It you could get it up it would soon die as there wouldn't be enough moisture to sustain it. The worst thing that can happen is to get a rain just enough for the seed to come up and then not get any for a while. The grass will burn up. For this reason I don't put any fertilizer out until it is up fairly well and the forcast is calling for rain. The ideal condition would be to get about a inch of slow soaking rain. Enough to get some moisture down for the roots. Thats about 550,000 gallons of water on 20 acres.

 

[preston39]

plb,
Believe you are a little late this spring. Try middle August for a good growth before frost. Should work.

 

[Wewild]

plb,
Believe you are a little late this spring. Try middle August for a good growth before frost. Should work.

For bermudagrass? How long you been doing this?

 

[Beefy]

at least wait until it rains if you are going to try. dont waste your diesel.

 

[preston39]

plb,
Believe you are a little late this spring. Try middle August for a good growth before frost. Should work.

For bermudagrass? How long you been doing this?

=============
Wewild,

What has that got to do with good seed planting?

It is late for spring sowing.....maybe you know something I don't...share it with me? When would you sow seed...in the hot of summer? He is in Arkansas..hot there this time of year until...sept. We are further north and it's to late here..IMO.

 

[preston39]

Beefy,
Your'e right the seed companys...and other studies...tells us that 5/15 until 8/15 is a chancy time to try new seed.

 

[Beefy]

i have bermuda grass seeding out now in nature so its not like its the end of the world if he wants to sow bermuda seed now. i'm just saying wait til it rains b/c in my opinion the spraying water idea is a waste of time and money (diesel). there, i said it. we sprig bermuda in the heat of summer but we usually are getting little thunderstorms each afternoon then too.

 

[Wewild]

plb,
Believe you are a little late this spring. Try middle August for a good growth before frost. Should work.

For bermudagrass? How long you been doing this?

=============
Wewild,

What has that got to do with good seed planting?

It is late for spring sowing.....maybe you know something I don't...share it with me? When would you sow seed...in the hot of summer? He is in Arkansas..hot there this time of year until...sept. We are further north and it's to late here..IMO.

We are heavy on fescue and clover. They were stripping the seed from the heads today as we saw a cow calve. My girl's gazed at it. Plant fescue in the fall and Bermuda in the spring.

Then again I might be wrong. I ain't going to wait till Aug. 15 as they advertise.

 

[dcara]

I think the water bill alone would end up costing the most. Just for the sake of discussion, another way would be to use pvc and sprinklers since we are only talking 20 acres which is roughly 933ft x933ft. 1/2 inch PVC is about 12 cents/ft here at Lowes but you may be able to find it cheaper. So for about $200 in material you could make a 1000ft long line with about 20 sprinklers (assuming 50 ft coverage zones) on it that went from one end of the property to the other. Of course you have to move the line a total of 20 times to cover the 1000ft width. Which means that you would want to use disconnets every 100ft or so to make the line easier to move. Also I bet it would take an hour to move the line. All this assume you have access to a 90 PSI water source. And since a 90 PSI water source will only drive 4-5 sprinklers out to about 30 ft radius you would have to have a shut off to each group of 4-5 sprinklers.

Whew! Maybe the tractor is the way to go.

 

[Dave]

One inch of water over 20 acres is 543,080 gallons. In my area (which is a wet area) the summer irrigation requirement for grass is about 18 inches of water for the summer. That would be over 9 million gallons. Might take a while to get the water you would need hauling it with the tractor.
Dave

 

[polledbull]

One inch of water over 20 acres is 543,080 gallons. In my area (which is a wet area) the summer irrigation requirement for grass is about 18 inches of water for the summer. That would be over 9 million gallons. Might take a while to get the water you would need hauling it with the tractor.
Dave

I would try praying for a rainy spell