Teff Grass

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sizmic

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I posted this same topic on another site, just want to see if any of you all have tried it.

I cut and bale silaged our first field the other day, looks impressive considering we are in a severe drought.

Sizmic
 
I have a few acres of sudex as well in case this stuff didn't pan out. Its supposed to be as good or better than Timothy. It is like Sudex in that it only lasts a year and is a summer grass. I don't know much more than that because it was somewhat of an expirement for our local farm service. I do know it came from Ethiopia and is a very, very small seed, smaller than clover.

At harvest it was very fine bladed and stemmed with about 3 foot of growth, i.e. it dried down like a normal grass instead of a week for Sudex. I am waiting on the analysis.

Sizmic
 
cowboyup216":si3kouft said:
Never heard of it. Please enlighten us. My old stand by tried and true is Sudex.

http://hayandforage.com/mag/farming_tons_teff/

A couple days ago I put out 17 tons of Sudex on a 12 acre tract and fertilized it with 300 pounds of triple 19 per acre. We got a good rain the last couple days and its already up and at em and the whole field looks like dog hair right now lol. I figure if we keep getting these rain showers like we have been off and on here recently it ought to hopefully make me 60-70 bales off that 12 acre tract course that is an estimate lol
17 tons????? seed or what. That is more than a ton to the acre. Is this a misprint.
 
sizmic":3bdk3v6i said:
I posted this same topic on another site, just want to see if any of you all have tried it.

I cut and bale silaged our first field the other day, looks impressive considering we are in a severe drought.

Sizmic

Teff is very popular for horse hay here in SA, I tried it the last few years as pasture and grazed it. Although it had high yields, it didn't come anywhere close to alfalfa for production per mm water. In my opinion it may be good for horses, but for grazing its value is limited because of a very shallow root system and cattle will pull alot of it out with their tongue action on sandy soil.

Unless your business is to sell hay to horse people, I believe there are better grasses and legumes for cattle hay.
 
cowboyup216":29dla37l said:
Knersie have you grown Sudan grass or Sudex down there? If so do you drill it in or just broadcast? I have found best results by drilling it in and then going over it with triple 19 300 pounds per acre. Seems like when I broadcast the fertilizer and the sudex seed together it doesnt give as good a stand. It is like the fertilizer cancels out the sudex seed.

the only sudan type I plant is Babala, it fairs the best on sorry acidic sandy soil. I broadcast and disc lightly, wait till the babala is about 3 inches tall and fertilise through the irrigation. LAN at 200kg/ha works well, but I usually go with the cheapest form of nitrogen, usually 1:0:0 (40), applied at same rate.

On the better soils my dad had good success with Cowcandy in the 1980's.

I have found that babala seldom yields the same results the second time you plant it on the same land, is your experience with other types of sudan the same?
 
Why don't you guys plant pure "Sudangrass" seed and not have to plant each year? Just let the last cutting go to seed.

All of the Sudex types are Sorghum X Sudangrass hybrids. I doubt they are much different in forage production capabilities or other characteristics.

There are at least a million of them.
 
Also, from that link I posted according to what I have been reading Teff is basically like a cross between alfalfa and wheat kind of similar but kind of not.

I haven't read the link, but I find it very hard believe that teff is related to alfalfa, one is a legume and the other a grass?
 
I saw a picture of the teff grass and it looked like an alfalfa stand. The people compared it to wheat. Said only thing that yields more is Alfalfa.

Not sure I understood you correctly, but teff looks nothing like alfalfa, teff kind of looks like brome from the few brome photos I've seen posted here.

I have no idea about actual tons per area yield, but since the only way I can produce any pasture in the summer is through irrigation, the yield per mm water applied is what is important to me. Under irrigation alfalfa will produce more than double what the teff will.
 

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