I've got about 3 weeks to get a field grazed down before the rental drill shows up to put in a warm season mix. I gave them a strip yesterday, they left a lot of residue. I dont think a brushhog would knock it down any lower. I guess I could throw up a back fence with smaller fields and more moves per day to get them to trample more. Most of what they left today is seeded out, rank, and plants that I dont recognize and they dont want to eat. I could trailer over the fall calving cows to increase numbers i guess.

Anyway. The question for you guys that use a no-till pretty regular. Is this acceptable residue to plant into?

Thanks

I’ve no tilled thru more residue than that, are you going to burn it down before planting?

Heavy disc drill should go through that.

If your just thickening up the stand and not killing it off before drilling I would be sure and plant something that will compete well with what you have and the closer you mow it the better before drilling.

I worked on the boneing tables as a young man and turned into a pretty fair meat cutter but don’t know crap about live cattle nor pastures.
I heard Allan Savoy from South Africa give a talk on cattle behaviour and he claimed he could make cows eat rocks if he could pack them tight enough and keep them moving in a large herd. He thought a large herd was in excess of 8000 animals.
No answer to your question I know LJ just thought that was interesting.

Aviator, no plan to do chemical burn down. But most of the stuff in that field will stop growth when the temps get into the 80s, the cereal rye, ryegrass, bluegrass, and native white clover are dominant and they wont compete after this pass. The drill i rent from the NRCS is pretty heavy. So i think we are on the right path.

Kahmann, if you havent looked into Allan Savory. He's pretty fascinating. YouTube used to have a TedTalk of him explaining his early days when they "thinned" the elephant herds and his hatred of ranchers... Time sure changed his thinking. Fasinating.

That amount of residue shouldn't be a problem for a good NT drill. You said 'warm season mix', I'm assuming you're talking warm season perennials like switchgrass or big bluestem, not a warm season annual like sorghum sudangrass. Warm season perennials are notoriously slow to establish, like a couple of years before you have a decent stand. I'd be afraid that without a burndown, the cool season stuff will comeback when it cools off and outcompete the warm season stuff.

Also note that the warm season grass seeds can be big and fluffy, they don't work well in many grass seed boxes without an agitator to keep them from bridging in the box. Some folks will mix them with a small amount of oats or fertilizer and seed it that way.

But that's based on my experiences here in Pa. Your neck of the woods is different than mine, I'd talk to someone with local knowledge of planting warm season grasses.

Dale

For the uninitiated....

Is the problem the drill cannot get through the current growth to plant, or that the new sprouts cannot get enough sun through what's left once they sprout to be viable?

Any rivers close by?

Plow up those arrowheads, 👍😃

Paraquat and a heavy disc no till may be your huckleberry. A flail mower ?

More A than B. If the coulters are sharp and with enough pressure the idea is to get the seed to soil contact and moisture. I just havent used one enough to know what can be done. I'm also usually planting cereal rye and ryegrass, both of which seed placement isnt particularly important. This will be a mix of Feed Corn, Sorghum Sudan, pearl millet, sunn hemp, cow peas, laredo soybeans. Not real expensive and it will be used for grazing but i'll like to give it the best chance of growing.

I feel like if people are no-tilling into corn or millet residue. Grass shouldnt be much of an issue. Just dont have many people using them to ask locally.

No rivers, arrowheads are found around springs here. I dont disc anymore.

Interesting, thanks for the response!

I feel like that's a lot of grass - residue to be planting through. I'd run a pasture renovator in front of my 1006NT drill before I'd try to plant that. Or better yet let the cows maul it or stomp it down. What are you going to plant?

That was after the cows left. I might give them smaller patches more frequently to encourage trampling. See post above for planting mix.

If you have any bermuda - bahia grass established where your going to no - till plant that mixture your results won't be very good. I've had excellent results planting fall and winter annuals through my pastures but not very much luck planting spring and summer annuals.

A good drill will plant into that. If that is warm season grass (aka competition), I’d be much more worried about the new stuff never getting a good start. I’d talk to my extension agent.