Sprigging Bermuda

[Anonymous]

Sprigging Bermuda grass. How hard is it? Do you have to sprig and not plant seeds? How do you do it, any special equipment involved?

 

[dun]

The sprig type varieties of Bermuda are hybreds and don't set seed. The usual method is to use a sprigger, a pretty good sized opiece of equipment that may be available to rent from you local NRCS office(Natural resources & conservation service).
Some folks around here, because we're a pretty cheap bunch, disk the soil to a fairly deep(for here) depth, 3-4 inches, the scatter the stuff thing disk it again and roll it. Sometimes it works pretty well, other times it sucks. At the cost of sprigs, renting a sprigger is the best option.

dun

Sprigging Bermuda grass. How hard is it? Do you have to sprig and not plant seeds? How do you do it, any special equipment involved?

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

Sprigging Bermuda grass. How hard is it? Do you have to sprig and not plant seeds? How do you do it, any special equipment involved?

Not knowing your location this response may be worthless!

"Coastal Bermudagrass" is generally sprigged since it is a Hybrid. "Common" bermudagrass can be seeded, when weather is warm...any grass seeding is uncertain unless soil moisture before and after seeding is adequate and remains so until grass is up and growing. Yes...sprigging is "hard"--usually contracted out to people that do it. Yes...need special equi9pment.

Any grass "planting" needs adequate moisture to thrive until it is established during the first year.

 

[Anonymous]

sorry about that. My location is southeast texas

 

[Campground Cattle]

We have sprigged several really good hay fields, I just happen to have to much bottom land. My neighbor has a one acre hay field that averages 12, 1500 lbs rolls per cutting. Now to the point we disc his field,sprayed with round up and let set for 21 days. We came back and redisc the field .
I then took my hay cutter and went to a very good coastal field of another neighbor. I cut three eight ft cuts, neighbor was following with a lowboy and two mexicans with pitch forks loading the cut coastal. We took the cut coastal over and disc it in the new field, made a kick butt hay field. This is the poor boy method of sprigging has worked well for us.

 

[txag]

We have sprigged several really good hay fields, I just happen to have to much bottom land. My neighbor has a one acre hay field that averages 12, 1500 lbs rolls per cutting. Now to the point we disc his field,sprayed with round up and let set for 21 days. We came back and redisc the field .
I then took my hay cutter and went to a very good coastal field of another neighbor. I cut three eight ft cuts, neighbor was following with a lowboy and two mexicans with pitch forks loading the cut coastal. We took the cut coastal over and disc it in the new field, made a kick butt hay field. This is the poor boy method of sprigging has worked well for us.

this method works best when planting tops (runners) like w/jiggs. for coastal, you almost have to use a sprigger to get any kind of stand.

 

[MrBilly]

We are in the process of planting seed for a hay field. Pennington has a seed called Cheyenne Bermuda :clap: . You can read about it at: http://www.bermudagrass.com/info/cheyenne.html

Seeding has several advantages over springing, one is that it is cheaper :lol: . The seed is expensive $167 per 25 lb bag, and you apply 12.5 lb/A . We apply the seed with a no till drill into ground that was aggressively herbicide treated to kill most grass and briars - this was very expensive also. With moisture, you are supposed to get hay the first year. We are way behing in getting it in due to the lack of moisture and the time it takes to sequentially kill the pre-existing trash - this is the week to do it!..

Drills can be rented from NRCS or extension offices, or just have a local farmer do it and pay him for doing it.

Bill :cboy:

 

[Campground Cattle]

We are in the process of planting seed for a hay field. Pennington has a seed called Cheyenne Bermuda :clap: . You can read about it at: http://www.bermudagrass.com/info/cheyenne.html

Seeding has several advantages over springing, one is that it is cheaper :lol: . The seed is expensive $167 per 25 lb bag, and you apply 12.5 lb/A . We apply the seed with a no till drill into ground that was aggressively herbicide treated to kill most grass and briars - this was very expensive also. With moisture, you are supposed to get hay the first year. We are way behing in getting it in due to the lack of moisture and the time it takes to sequentially kill the pre-existing trash - this is the week to do it!..

Drills can be rented from NRCS or extension offices, or just have a local farmer do it and pay him for doing it.

Bill :cboy:

Hope your not disapointed in the cheyene. We tried it didn't do near as well as the claims. Now that was for me lots of bottomland and clay based soils.

 

[dun]

Have any of the Universities in GA done test plantings? It's sometimes pretty enlightening to see what they come up with when they plant plots side by side and harvest them and manage them the same for several years.

dun

We are in the process of planting seed for a hay field. Pennington has a seed called Cheyenne Bermuda :clap: . You can read about it at: http://www.bermudagrass.com/info/cheyenne.html

Seeding has several advantages over springing, one is that it is cheaper :lol: . The seed is expensive $167 per 25 lb bag, and you apply 12.5 lb/A . We apply the seed with a no till drill into ground that was aggressively herbicide treated to kill most grass and briars - this was very expensive also. With moisture, you are supposed to get hay the first year. We are way behing in getting it in due to the lack of moisture and the time it takes to sequentially kill the pre-existing trash - this is the week to do it!..

Drills can be rented from NRCS or extension offices, or just have a local farmer do it and pay him for doing it.

Bill :cboy:

 

[Beefy]

http://www.bermudagrass.com/info/cheyenne-data.html

 

[dun]

That's sure a lot easier to read then the stuff that the universities put out with table after table of data.
The reason I had mentioned it was because in this area Wrangler is about the only seeded bermuda that has shown freeze tolerence.

dun

http://www.bermudagrass.com/info/cheyenne-data.html

 

[Beefy]

We are about to sprig several fields in bermuda grass and i'm trying to decide what to go with. Farm is located right below Tifton, home of the Tift varieties of bermuda. lots of sandyloam. we sprigged a field in alycia last summer late, and it didnt do much until a few months ago and it took off! several years ago my feeds professor ranked coastal and tift 85 way above alycia in nutritional value for cattle. i'm kind of leaning toward a tift variety. need one good for grazing and another good for baling, or one good for both. suggestions?

 

[Anonymous]

Beefy I am from the Sylvesta area and over here they are sprigginh the Tift85 for hay and grazing. BUTTTTT Tift 85 for either needs moor moisture than the other Tifts other than Tift9 Bahai. Which a lot of people have planted for grazing. It is about the same as tift85 for protien according to the test, and some nitrogen applied at the right time. Also, A little further East, aroung Baker county the are bailing tift9 and it is testing good for winter feedings.

Curt

 

[Beefy]

Thats what everybody is saying--check out tift9 for grazing. i dont care for bahia grass but i guess its worth looking at. ive heard that tift85 adn coastal mysteriously dies out in patches about the size of a pickup truck and that alycia is better for longterm. i guess we'll find out. i guess yall are getting plenty of rain out sylversterway?

 

[MrBilly]

Here in GA, Cheyenne is doing well. A report by the Dr. John Andrae,UGA forage specialist ,in 2002 reports:

"Varieties.
Cheyenne is a popular seed-type variety marketed by Pennington Seed. Cheyenne is persistent, cold tolerant, and has produced yields similar to Russell and Coastal bermudagrass in central and north Georgia. Cheyenne pastures grazed at the Northwest Branch Experiment Station in Calhoun for the past five summers have provided excellentyields with no indication of thinned stands. Seed supplies of Cheyenne are often tight
because of poor seed production and high seed demand."

He also reviews other varieties for GA.

Details at this link:

http://commodities.caes.uga.edu/fieldcr ... arch02.pdf

For GA producers his Forage Website is very good:

http://commodities.caes.uga.edu/fieldcr ... page.shtml

Again for GA producers, I have produced a Georgia Cattle Discussion Board, we have few members and little activity , so think about joining and contributing : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/georgiacattle/

Bill :cboy:

 

[Beefy]

Well, i went and looked at some local stands of Tift 85, Alycia, Tift85vsAlycia, and some Tift9 Bahia. To make a long story short, not too impressed with the Tift 85. Liked the Bahia a lot but still think bermuda is better that bahia in general. nonetheless, we are going to try some of the Tift 9 in a couple of weeks when we obtain some reasonably $ed seeds. as far as the bermuda goes, i think we'll go with coastal. we have some on the back 100 and it grows like wildfire! comments?

 

[Campground Cattle]

Paraguay is by far the best Bahia for hay and grazing seed is a little steep and hard to come by.