Questions about hay field

[Rhune]

Two years ago I started rehabbing a 25 acre piece of land hoping to turn it into a hay field. With the help of the local pasture specialist and a local farmer, it was planted in October 2010. Fescue and clover was planted. All sorts of stuff grew. Lots of thistles, tansy, buttercup, foxtail, mint, lavender. Of course there was some fescue and clover mixed in, but was a real mess.

I spent quite a bit of time this last spring spot treating with a backpack sprayer and finally gave up. I returned to the pasture this last week with plans to herbicide kill it all and start over in the spring. I was quite surprised to find a nice amount of fescue and clover growing up through the dead annual grasses. So much so that I decided no to spray.. 95% of the green stuff was fescue/clover.

My current plan is to brushhog down the pasture to 5-6 inches (already started and it actually looks... nice) and hit it with some N. My hope is that it will be big and thick and crowd out the bad annuals when its their time to come back. Does this sound like a reasonable plan or is it a fools errand? I talked about this with the local pasture specialist. She said not to add N because I would have too much hay in the spring..... :???:

Would love some feedback. Thanks in advance.

 

[novatech]

It is real hard to give advice when we have no clue what part of the country you are in.
Generally good grass can help choke out weeds. Cutting for hay repeatedly will sell off most of the seed or transfer them to another part of your place.
You have a seed bank in the ground that will haunt you for years to come.
A good herbicide program will benefit you more than anything but can also destroy your clover so it must be timed correctly. Applying with a wick applicator works for some of the taller weeds
As far as the N is concerned your agent may have been referring to the fact that to much N will also kill off your clover. Clover produces free N that can be shred or grazed off in the spring and recycled. Clover can also be baled along with the fescue and adds protein to the hay.

 

[Rhune]

Sorry about that. I'm in southern Oregon. Lotta rain, little or no snow, dry summers. This plot is really wet, why I was told to use fescue.

We talked about spraying in the fall/winter for buttercup when the clover is dormant. However, I do not see any buttercup actively growing. There was mounds of it (or what was thought to be buttercup) in the spring, all of those mounds are dead and getting mowed down.

 

[dun]

If the stuff looks dead you can bet that it's either shed it's seed or still has the seed and brush hogging it will just add to the seed bank. When we took over this farm it was badly abused and had fescue, clover and mostly weeds. I sprayed the weeds in the spring summer and fall with 2,4-d the first year and that helped. The second year I used Grazon and only had to spray in the late spring and late fall. The next year the clover (volunteer) started coming back so I broadcast more clover. Now th pastures have a very few weeds, and tons of clover and fescue. The spraying along with MIG is what I feel broguht these pastures back. The hay fields we cut and a couple of weeks later hit with Grazon. In the early spring (more like really late winter) I'll fertilize to the soil test based on what is claimed the fescue hay would have removed by haying. Every other year we do a soil test and fertilize/lime to that. We graze the hay fields once in the fall and let sit till the following year. In semi-normal years we don't feed hay till late march or early april.
One great truth that I picked up from the local NRCS is that you can;t undo years of neglect in just a year.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Great information Dun.

 

[Rhune]

Dun, I soil tested and fertilized last year. Obviously didn't pull off any hay. Should I go through that whole process again? I was just thinking that some N would give the fescue a quick little boost right now to give it a competitive advantage. My understanding is that it (N) moves through the soil profile rather quickly and any excess wouldn't be left over for the weeds come spring.

 

[1wlimo]

Both Dun and Novatech have good advice,

all I would add is that if you were to cut your hay early next year so that the weeds seeds were not viable when cut then you would have better control. Silage or haylage would be better. At any rate the hay quality would be higher, but less volume than traditional timing.

Personally I would not add N now as there will be limited growth over the winter.

 

[Rhune]

1wlimo, cutting in early spring sounds good. However, it is a very wet field I don't think I could get on it then. I have about a month more of access then need to wait till probably May.

 

[dun]

It's a little late now but if you were going to stockpile it for fall/wnter grazing if you hit it with around 60 lbs pa of nitrogen in the fall that would help. Otherwise I wouldn;t do anything until early spring. We soil test every 2 years, the first year that the ph has stabilized (i.e. stops going up) we reapply lime.

 

[IL cow man]

Dun is correct. I believe it is too late to put N on the field. It may do more to stunt the clover. Good Luck!

 

[Rhune]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'll let it ride until spring and jump on it with some 24D when I can get a tractor safely on it.

 

[dun]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'll let it ride until spring and jump on it with some 24D when I can get a tractor safely on it.

You may have to sacrifice the clover to get ahead of the weeds. My preference would be Grazon to kill thos early germinating weeds and keeping the later ones from getting started. Shortly after we cut hay this year we had 2 months without a drop of rain then 10 inches in 3 days. The weeds germinated in the hay fields and really took off faster then anything else. Queen Anns Lace and spurge took over the field. Ended up hitting it with Grazon in late august and now I have cows grazing on the foot tall grass. The seed bank of crap is still there but at least I prevented adding to it by keeping this years crop from going to seed.

 

[OleScout]

Problem here somewhere. Either $45 is too high or the guy is hard to get along with. If not one of the guys closeby would have rented it before you knew anything about it.

 

[Rhune]

Bumping this thread with an update.

Late last October I brush hogged the field. Did not apply anything.

The field is actually looking nice. Currently very wet, but I have not seen any significant weeds (few early thistles which I will 24D by backpack). No signs of the butter cup.

I'm beginning to think that I might actually grow some hay this year. If thats the case, I would assume that I need to start lining up someone to cut it.

I am hoping to work a deal with someone who has the equipment. Something like they cut/bale and keep half.

I have never done this before.

Couple questions:

1. Anyone know how are these cooperative agreements are normally structured? I read somewhere on this forums that they normally charge half and expect to buy the other half at decent price. But I'm sure the size of the field and quality of the hay plays a big role. My field is about 25 acres and accessed by a paved road.

2. Is anyone even going to want this hay? Its Fawn fescue (enodophyte free) and clover.


Thanks in advance!

 

[kciD]

Don't know what variety of fescue you planted-- but if it's not the endophyte free stuff-- give it a couple years-- it will be a monoculture of it.

Around here, we don't 'plant' fescue-- and still within 5 years it will become a monoculture...