Update on Fall seeding in the northeast

samedi 10 octobre 2015

so some of us were debating in a thread back in aug as to whether to seed this fall or not. It was really dry for most of us. I decided to do an update. Seeded/overseeded multiple fields totaling about 80 ac. Paddocks with 31 fescue. new stands of orchard grass, overseeding timothy, overseeding orchard grass established stands.

Seeded from 8/21 and finished about sept 10-15th. sorry, forgot to write down the last two paddocks I did. For the most part, I would say I got fabulous results given the incredibly dry weather we had in Aug and Sept. Used a GP 10ft nt drill set at the least depth possible with about 1 inch penetration with the coulters. Seeded KY31 at about 35#, new seeding og at 25#, overseeding og at 16# and timothy overseeding at about 15#.

Paddocks-two of the paddocks were overgrazed and down on the ground. both took great. Pic. The one in the better conditioned stand shows good fill in and there is a lot of new shoots here and there, it is just really hard to see.

Timothy over seeding- really hard to follow the drill marks as the crab grass is still holding on. Only 4-5 inches tall but thick with lots of seed heads. When I really look, I can find a number of new seedlings and more emerging each day so I think the stand was really improved. Will know next June.

OG over seeding- one field has had major improvement, has more moisture. The other three are coming slowly but there. Pictures do not show much so none offered.

New OG Seeding in teff- I have two situations, one in killed stubble, one in unkilled stubble-(Coop did not get it killed). The fields that were not successfully killed have great stands in the areas that the teff died naturally from lodging. We were not able to cut first cutting teff here until late into July and large areas of the field were dead after that first hay crop was removed. The stand in the dead areas is good to great and we will see if it holds through the winter. Problem is in the unkilled areas germination was apparently delayed as the teff was taking all the moisture in the soil. That may or may not be the cause, but that is what appears to be going on. As you can see from the pic labeled high teff there is still a lot of competition in that field. The stand in the killed stubble was slow to emerge and is still emerging in spots.

So on balance, spraying malfeasance by others not withstanding, I seeded at exactly the proper time without proper moisture. used much heavier seeding rates and have good emergence with still about a month to go in developing weather for root stocks. I think I will see improved stands in all fields that were overseeded and that hopefully the new stands will survive the teff falling down over the next several weeks after frost hits. For me, it was a major success. rick