it is a little late hear to sow grass seed, old farmers addage (only sow grass seed in months that have a r in the spelling) but if you are wanting to sell to horse people i would look at a alfalfa for a fall planting.
this is a good legume with excellant nutrition for livestock, sells at a premium, and will give you a cutting about every 30 days during the season, buffalo alfalfa, seed sell's hear in the $2, range and a broadcast rate of 20 lbs per acre will lead to a seed cost of just over $40 per acre, for the alfalfa, and with a drill it it can be cut down to about 16 lbs per acre.
i would also incorparate about 1 lbs of orcard grass seed as well as a bushel of oats to the acre in the fall planting,
the orcard grass will help fill in when the alfalfa begins to thin out, the oats will give a good quick sprouting root system that will keep your ground from washing to bad in the fall/winter/spring rains. and horses love oats
the first cutting will be mostly oats with some alfalfa, but that gives the alfalfa time to get rooted and going good, and it will take over from there.
your soil will need the proper ph and nutrients for this crop so a soil test is the only way to go, know what you need and follow the recomendations of what the test will reveal.
alfalfa farming will require one other item, you will need to sray it in the springtime to keep the bugs from eating it, but once each spring works well here.
alfalfa here will work in a seven year cycle, with the stand increasing the first couple of years and then beginning to thin out, and by the end of the seventh year i rotate to another grop
this will require you preparing a good seed bed, so there is some substancial cost involved. and it will keep you hoping in the growing season to get it in on a timely manner
if you do not want to spend all that time and money i have had good success starting clover stands by overseeding clover on top of a light early or late snow fall and letting the melting snow sink the seed into the ground, before or after the ground has frozen
the snow also lets me know where i have been with the seeder
a fescue/clover mix is better that feeding snowball to livestock, and does not have to be cut as regularly as alfalfa
Topic Options
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Gerald J. wrote: