Improving Hay

I've been looking at my hay this year. It's not that great. It's all fescue. Everything else has pretty much petered out. I'm looking for a cheap and easy way to reseed it. I thought I would cut it real short on my last cutting this year. Then I would rent a hard land drill and drill in some orchard grass. Then I might broadcast some clover and maybe some timothy. I've been told drilling in seed in established grass just won't work. I just wondered if anyone has tried it, or if it's a good idea or not?

Another quick question on clipping pastures. I usually wait until the fescue heads mature and dry up. I always figured if 1% of those seeds sprout and grow, that would a pretty good reseeding every year at no cost. I've recently been told that cutting it earlier will make it spread and produce more grass that way. Maybe he's on to something. It seems to work in the hay field.

Only real bet is disc the fields in small plots, seed in what you want and try to keep the fescue down. We did that to a 21 acre field that had been a fescue field, planted wheat and just as started to build on growth cut it into the dirt, reseeded with Brome and is all that currently is growing to any volume there now.

Ranse wrote: cabinhollow wrote: Once fescue sets it seed head it needs to be cut. It will then keep growing and spread out. Plus other types of grass will start gowning in the stand. One other reason I wait to clip pastures is it gives me time to finish the first cutting of hay. If what you say is true (and I'm not doubting you), then hay and pastures need to be cut pretty much at the same time.

About half of my pasture is cut for hay. Then as soon as I done with the first cutting of hay or when I get rained out, I start cutting the pasture that are not used for hay.
My goal is to get 80% of my pasture fixed so that I can cut hay off it.
4 years ago I bought a small track hoe to dig the rock out and have been upgrading my fences to be able to graze the fields better.

Hard to imagine how bad the hay was that cattle starved to death. I know when we have made hay late that you can see a difference in the condition of the cattle but you have to give them all they can eat and maybe a little supplement. Like anything their maybe more to the story maybe they weren't  getting water . Some people feed cattle straw and cornstalks bad when hay tests worst then straw.

Considering what little nutrient value grass has to have less would be doing something. I am wondering of that charge, sounds more like he just failed to feed.

Here we have to watch for Nitrate poisoning by cutting too soon after fertilizing or prussic acid with late cut frost burnt standing silage forage

If you have any chicken farms close by, the litter makes excellent fertilizer. We spread ours on hay fields and pastures around here and can sell 3 or 4 times the amount we have. We have a waiting list to get us to at least the fall of 2020. Our loads are about 10 yards and each load covers about 2 acres the way we spread. This way one application will usually last 2 to 3 years. Some people ask that we spread lighter due to smell or whatever but they usually need it every year instead of every 2 or 3

I didn't know they gave away anything. Let us know how it goes

Edited by thendrix - 15 May 2019 at 4:02pm

Very wet? Do they just recycle the stuff from the Mexican restaurant?

I've sent soil samples off before. A man can't afford to do everything the test results says it needs. My ground doesn't drain very well. Most of it is flat, low laying, and wet natured, some spots down right swampy. I need to spread more lime. I haven't done it in two years. The last time it cost four grand.

The stuff from the sanitation department I've heard is free. Getting hauled and delivered however, is not. The problem I've been told is spreading it. I suppose it must be wet. They say it clumps together and you need something that will break it up. I haven't checked into it yet, it's just one of my numerus plans.

My main curiosity is if anyone ever tried to drill seed in established grass? I talked to a guy a while back that said his father tried it several times. He said it would come up. You could see it in little rows for a while, but then the other grass would soon choke it out and dominate. He said it just wouldn't do good, and was a waste of money. I'd like to know if that is true, a second opinion so to speak.

I have seen some fields that they have seeded clover in.
Graze/mow the grass down as low as they can.
In font of each row unit, spray a 3"-4" band of weed killer.
I have just seen it driving by, have not stop and look at the fields.
It look like they planted the clover in 14"-16" rows.