Grass Experiment #2

In the spring of 2021 we strip tilled into the terminated rye on the same field with our soil warrior. I just want to talk about how the soil warrior fits into our management system with grass being seeded into alfalfa and cover crops following corn silage. The idea keeping a living root in the soil all year.

This is the same field with cereal rye cover crop which has been terminated about 10 days before strip tilling. The strips are made and the corn is planted. We planted when it was still green, about 2 days after spraying. Manure was applied about a week before planting.

This crop was harvested from that field. About ¼ of it was frozen right to the ground. That didn’t seem to bother it much. Yielded about 24T/acre of high cut corn silage.

This is a test strip. The brown strip in the middle no grass was seeded. This was taken about 3 days after chopping. This field was seeded with orchard grass so we could compare it to meadow fescue. It seems to be too aggressive. Yields too much and we lose too much quality.

This is meadow fescue. It is less competitive with the alfalfa as long as its not planted too thick, we went with about 4 lbs. / acre. I think I would go lighter next year, maybe 2 lbs. / acre if the weather is good and plenty of rain. In 2020 we seeded after the 3^rd cutting. In 2022, we started seeding after 2^nd cutting in July because rain was plentiful. Will tell you next year which year is right.

In 2021, we planed on doing some inner seeding with the Valmar inner seeder we purchased on an online auction. We moved the Valmar onto our John Deere vertical till. If you notice, the tool bar has 2 dual seed units for placing seed between each corn row. Next summer we plan on side dressing and planting a cover crop with the tool bar that the Valmar was originally attached to.

The vertical till does a good job at doing just enough tillage for seed to soil contact in fact the cover crop looks like it was seeded with a drill in rows. The machine also serves for leveling prior to seeding alfalfa without any major deep tillage.

This was seeded with the John Deere vertical till and Valmar air seeder. Notice the nice straight rows as if it were done with a drill. The only issue is we forgot to clean the seed and we had a few skips. But by using bin run seed we saved quite a bit of money.

This is the same field. Looks like early spring but it is really fall. Again, this was oats. We are going to seed this with alfalfa in the spring of 2022. Very little tillage should be necessary. Which means we won’t have to pick rocks.

Meadow fescue was seeded on the far field. The close field is alfalfa. Two days after chopping. One of the big advantages of seeding grass into alfalfa is the grass covers the ground and protects the alfalfa from soil borne disease from water splashing up onto the alfalfa leaves. We’ve seen substantial yield increase because of this. Also, it seems to have a synergistic effect similar to crop rotation.

You’ll notice this field was almost clear alfalfa in the spring but now appears to be dominate to grass with a substantial yield bump. It all gets mixed in the same bunker, we have not noticed any milk yield decrease, cows seem healthier. Components are Fat 4.3 and Protein 3.2 at over 32,000 lbs. / cow.

This is another test strip. On the left is clear alfalfa, on the right is meadow fescue with alfalfa.

Advantages- Seeding meadow fescue grass into existing alfalfa as I mentioned before, reduces disease pressure, increases yield, reduces compaction due to the root mass that grass creates, allows us to spread manure in summer on 3^rd year hay without damaging the alfalfa, reduces the amount of manure we need to haul in fall, improves herd health and milk components, more environment friendly. Provides for the preparation of the possibility of a winter kill by having grass in place in the 3 year stand.

he alfalfa, but being that it is mixed in the same bunker it does not really hurt milk yield I believe. The following year the field will be rotated to corn anyway.