planting common bermuda grass

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Caustic Burno":1xwmf351 said:
TexasBred":1xwmf351 said:
Howdyjabo":1xwmf351 said:
Bahia is tuff stuff can give a disc cutter the hic cups in the hayfield. I have some common in a pasture that bahia isn't crazy about stays to wet most years. Coastal is just not cost effective to me. I have tried it doesn't like it here gets a rust that common doesn't. Keeping bahia out of it is impossible. Learned to go with mother nature she likes bahia.

We experience the same thing in our area too.
 
I graze some bahia coastal mixed pasture. You can keep bahia out of bermuda grass by spraying. A gallon of cimmeron plus at 150 dollars will spray 25 acres. You dont have to do it every year. I graze bahia but just cant see baling it. The protien levels and yields dont even come close to coastal with the same inputs. I like coastal in my area of central east texas better than any of the other hybrids. It has a good cold tolerance, and drought resistance. Tifton 85 or jiggs will get killed back at a sustained temp below 20 degrees. But both have tremendous yields if cold tolerance isnt a problem in your area. They grow fast and will make alot of useless hay if not cut regularly. Both would be great for grazing. All would be better than comman bermuda. You dont need much to sprig. Buy your sprigs and disc in. You can drag with about anything with some weight. Rolling to pack the soil is to hold moisture. Planting seed with lack of moisture will result in a poor stand also. Once the seed has enough moisture to sprout the dries it will die. Jmo.
 
B&M Farms":3g4tcimp said:
I graze some bahia coastal mixed pasture. You can keep bahia out of bermuda grass by spraying. A gallon of cimmeron plus at 150 dollars will spray 25 acres. You dont have to do it every year. I graze bahia but just cant see baling it. The protien levels and yields dont even come close to coastal with the same inputs. I like coastal in my area of central east texas better than any of the other hybrids. It has a good cold tolerance, and drought resistance. Tifton 85 or jiggs will get killed back at a sustained temp below 20 degrees. But both have tremendous yields if cold tolerance isnt a problem in your area. They grow fast and will make alot of useless hay if not cut regularly. Both would be great for grazing. All would be better than comman bermuda. You dont need much to sprig. Buy your sprigs and disc in. You can drag with about anything with some weight. Rolling to pack the soil is to hold moisture. Planting seed with lack of moisture will result in a poor stand also. Once the seed has enough moisture to sprout the dries it will die. Jmo.

If you couldn't grow coastal you would come to love poor man's coastal.
Got watch that bahia will stunt the growth on them cows.
Well I baled it every year till this one, I quit chasing hay quality rainbow years ago.
If the cow can't stay healthy, thrive on my grass and hay I am changing the cow not the grass.
 
Caustic i agree. A cow that cant make it on whats in front of her needs to go. Cull hard. Im just saying if your gonna put the money into a grass, put into a grass with higher yields and a higher protien and digestibility.
 
I love bermuda grass for a warm season lawn that has the advantage of sun. I would advise anybody to stay away from Bahia. I am living in Winston-Salem NC, and no one here has ever heard of Bahia. Go a little further south around Columbia SC and below, and you will find it. It keeps out weeds very well, but it is one of the ugliest grasses I have ever seen. The reason is that it produces roots that make the blades space themselves widely apart that you can't ever get it thick enough to call it a turf. Some other lawns that have weeds between grass blades have the ability to tighten up the turf if you pull the weeds. Not Bahia. You will see sand between the blades. Is that what you want? I didn't think so. If you want proof, visit a lawn around Columbia SC.
Many reasions why I love bermuda is that it will tighten up and make a thick lawn. Crabgrass loves the sun too and it will grow around bermuda. You need to pull up the crabgrass and get the knots which form underground spreading their invasion around. The hairy crabgrass roots are shallow in comparison to Bermuda. If there is Bermuda near the area where you remove the crabgrass, it will invade the area previously containing the crabrass. That is how you can thicken your bermuda lawn. Bermuda roots are much stronger than crabgrass, and the crabgrass will have a tough time coming back, especially if you pull up the knots. And weed control is improved. I have found Bermuda to grow on slopes that other grasses will fail to spread. If you want some erosion control on slopes, Bermuda will do it as long as it gets enough sun. During the winter you can have an overseeded fescue lawn. Around here we can have 2 lawns in one, dependent on the season. And it keeps out the weeds too. But you need to fertilize the Bermuda to make it grow best. It has the highest fertilizer requirements of all the grasses I know of, and it likes it in liquid form that you can attach to a water hose and spray jar. Bermuda is also foot traffic tolerant, and you can walk on it all you want without damaging it.
 
I agonized over the same stuff too. During the drought my bahia pastures looked like somebody set fire to them. There was nothing there to eat. Some common burmuda came up on its own. I finally opted to sprig Tifton 85. Best money I ever spent on grass. I fertilized it like the Aggies say to do in the first year. This year I have put nothing on it but sunshine and it is thick, green and outperforming bahia X10. I can't grow more land, so I focus on growing more grass on what I have. I bet I can double the stocking rates on Tifton. I hear Coastal is similar and I will experiment with Coastal next. I will not seed anything again. BTW- I paid $145 an acre for the Tifton sprigging. I did the disking and prep work myself. Sprigger came out and loaded the machine and sprigged. When he got done the ground was nice and smooth. Two weeks later I had grass popping out of the sand, and a year later, it was almost weed-like. If you give it some fertilizer, I swear you can watch it grow.
 
Having so much fun with my questions about Klein grass in the Klein grass thread I figured I'd try to ask about Common Bermuda. I have a lot of it taking over my fallow wheat fields.

Seems like:

1) I should graze it early and hard because it loses nutritional value pretty early in central Texas.
2) I can lightly disc my heavily grazed Common Bermuda in the fall, hope for some winter grass, clover, or other green winter stuff, then expect the Common Bermuda to come back well in the spring.

Would y'all folks agree?
 

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