# Amazed



## Red Bank (Apr 28, 2019)

I took over a hay field last year that everyone had been baling for the last ten years and no one had put anything on the field. Last May I baled for the first time the 22 acres and got 350 small square bales and 5 round bales. I sprayed it last Labor Day with weed master and did the fall cut in October and got 580 small square bales. I had 2 ton per acre of lime applied in October and fertilized it with 300 lb per acre of 20-10-10 in March. I sprayed it again in April with weed master and cut and baled it this past week. I got 918 small square bales and 57 4x5 round bales. I never would have imagined that this field would have turned around the way it has. We had a great winter and spring for hay with not too cold winter and above average rainfall. My own field had the best yield it has ever had but the field down the road has amazed me.


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## Edd in KY (Jul 16, 2009)

Those of us that continually care for our hay fields forget how much difference it makes. I am used to thick and relatively weed free hay. A couple years ago a neighbor got hurt and asked me cut and bale the hay until he got back to work. Our fields are side by side but he rarely fertilizes. The difference in hay output was amazing. His fields were hardly worth the effort.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

That's great Red Bank.

I just started rehabbing a "lost cause" field. It's probably 85% weeds, and it's the bad stuff- milk weed, dogbane, multi flora, goldenrod, you name it.

Owner is paying me a fair wage for first 2 mowings with 15' bush hog, then I'm on my own.
Well, I've cut it twice and the weeds are still largely in control. She said she might be agreeable to a weed spraying, but she's worried about spraying, her water well, kids, etc.

I've had good success in past attempts and have won those battles and now they produce decent natural grass hay. 
This one looks like it could go either way, with the weeds being in strong control.


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## Red Bank (Apr 28, 2019)

I understand JD I really wanted to walk after the first cutting when that’s all I got. I thought I would have to teased but the key was controlling the weeds and letting the grass do it’s thing. I was hoping on the nine hundred square bales but the 57 round bales really blew my mind.


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## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

That is great to hear. Field maintenance is a real thing that is well worth the effort and expense.

This may not be the best place to ask this question but I will give it a try. I annually spray my pastures in the early spring and hay fields as needed.

I only have a 55 gallon 3-point tank with a roller pump fixed style sprayer, no boom arms. I have always used 2-4-D amine from my local CO-OP and mix according to the bottle. But I am never certain how to set the regulator on the sprayer or what speed to travel at. I usually have the regulator wide open to maximize spread.

In simplest terms how much area in acres should I be covering with a 55 gallon mix of 2-4-D?

Thanks,


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## PaulN (Mar 4, 2014)

The rate per acre of 2-4-D is 2-4 pints, depending on what you're trying to kill. With 55 gallons of mix, you should be covering 2 to 3 acres to get that rate. Most people calibrate their sprayer for 20 GPA


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

I have had good success with 3 pint an acre. But also I farm pecans and spray some around pecan trees and the label says 3 pints for pecan orchards so that's why I have been doing 3 pints. Tryed 4.2, which is what the label says for some weeds but did not see much or any difference. I am calibrated at 19.5 gal an acre.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Red Bank said:


> I understand JD I really wanted to walk after the first cutting when that's all I got. I thought I would have to teased but the key was controlling the weeds and letting the grass do it's thing. I was hoping on the nine hundred square bales but the 57 round bales really blew my mind.


I have spots where it's literally bare. That's really rare around here this time of year. I wonder what these folks did with this ground before I got there. Plenty of organic material-almost too much like choking out the grass, the patches of noxious weeds. 
I think this may be my Waterloo battle. Might have gotten overconfident based on previous success LOL

Might have to beg to use some weed spray.....I can tell she ain't exactly into sprayin.


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## Trotwood2955 (Sep 4, 2012)

Tell her the spraying is far less impactful to the environment than multiple trips burning diesel fuel trying to mow it into submission


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## Red Bank (Apr 28, 2019)

JD3430 said:


> I have spots where it's literally bare. That's really rare around here this time of year. I wonder what these folks did with this ground before I got there. Plenty of organic material-almost too much like choking out the grass, the patches of noxious weeds.
> I think this may be my Waterloo battle. Might have gotten overconfident based on previous success LOL
> Might have to beg to use some weed spray.....I can tell she ain't exactly into sprayin.


 I think you need to convince her or walk. When we sprayed last Labor Day it didn't rain for three weeks. You could smell the 2,4-D for a week going down the road. When it finally rained you could smell it again for a week lol. I thought she would be against spraying but she agreed to it.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

JD3430 said:


> Plenty of organic material-almost too much like choking out the grass, the patches of noxious weeds.
> .


That's not how OM works


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

So I took on a place it had brush overtaking the field. So bad it was covered. Trunk diameter was anywhere from 1 inch to 4 inches. Some larger. Took my heavy duty batwing in and mowed it down. This is thorny brushed we have down here called hueisashe and mesquite. Along with a very very bad weed problem. I mowed it down twice last spring. Then started offset discing it. Had to pull about 5 to 10 trees per acre that I couldn't now down. Offset disced it 3 or 4 times. Then tandem disc with harrow behind it. Got the field smoothed out and a good seed bed by this spring. Planted haygrazer and just finished cutting 6 to 7 foot tall haygrazer on this field. Did not see any brush regrowth at all. Weeds were pretty much non existent. Pulled up some haygrazer stalks to see root growth and roots are easily 10 inches deep. So should help the soil in the long run. 
But yeah bringing a field back from the wild isn't always easy. 
Have another field I cut on shares, I get 3/4 of the hay. About as rough as field as there is. But actually weed free but crap grass on it and it just doesn't seem to make grass. Maybe got 2 bales an acre off it all of last year. I really have not fertilized it other than 2 ton of chicken litter. Guess that field I need to take a disc to it and plant some klien grass or somthing.


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## Chase72 (Nov 12, 2017)

Stxpecans123 said:


> So I took on a place it had brush overtaking the field. So bad it was covered. Trunk diameter was anywhere from 1 inch to 4 inches. Some larger. Took my heavy duty batwing in and mowed it down. This is thorny brushed we have down here called hueisashe and mesquite. Along with a very very bad weed problem. I mowed it down twice last spring. Then started offset discing it. Had to pull about 5 to 10 trees per acre that I couldn't now down. Offset disced it 3 or 4 times. Then tandem disc with harrow behind it. Got the field smoothed out and a good seed bed by this spring. Planted haygrazer and just finished cutting 6 to 7 foot tall haygrazer on this field. Did not see any brush regrowth at all. Weeds were pretty much non existent. Pulled up some haygrazer stalks to see root growth and roots are easily 10 inches deep. So should help the soil in the long run.
> But yeah bringing a field back from the wild isn't always easy.
> Have another field I cut on shares, I get 3/4 of the hay. About as rough as field as there is. But actually weed free but crap grass on it and it just doesn't seem to make grass. Maybe got 2 bales an acre off it all of last year. I really have not fertilized it other than 2 ton of chicken litter. Guess that field I need to take a disc to it and plant some klien grass or somthing.


I've noticed that usually when you use chicken litter that a ton of weeds appear with it, maybe that's just my local chicken houses, but I would never use chicken litter on my fields


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Same here, lots of weed seeds in the chicken feed. Can compost if you have a carbon source to blend.


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

Here is a picture of what the field looked like, not the same field but good idea.
Also picture of the haygrazer progress.


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## Chase72 (Nov 12, 2017)

Looking really good, that reminds me so much of Johnson grass


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Looks like you had a nice grass base under those trees. That really helps.


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## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

Stxpecans123 said:


> Here is a picture of what the field looked like, not the same field but good idea.
> Also picture of the haygrazer progress.


Are you bush hogging in the first picture? Are you cutting trees that big?


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## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

Chase72 said:


> Looking really good, that reminds me so much of Johnson grass


If I understand correctly haygrazer and johnsongrass are in the same family.


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

In the first picture that is a tree puller pulling the trees to big to mow. That wasn't the same field. But gives you an idea of how brushy it was. The field with the haygrazer was brush and bloodweeds.


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## clowers (Feb 11, 2011)

You have any pictures of the baled haygrazer


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

No, baled some couple days ago and will be baling the rest either today or tomorrow. Will get you some pics.


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

Few bales off one field


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

Made 167 5x5.5 bales on 40 acres. They came out tight but lighter than most grass hay bales I bale. Took forage sample and sent off, have not gotten results yet. But when looking at the sample material looks like mostly leaf.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Stxpecans123 said:


> So I took on a place it had brush overtaking the field. So bad it was covered. Trunk diameter was anywhere from 1 inch to 4 inches. Some larger. Took my heavy duty batwing in and mowed it down. This is thorny brushed we have down here called hueisashe and mesquite. Along with a very very bad weed problem. I mowed it down twice last spring. Then started offset discing it. Had to pull about 5 to 10 trees per acre that I couldn't now down. Offset disced it 3 or 4 times. Then tandem disc with harrow behind it. Got the field smoothed out and a good seed bed by this spring. Planted haygrazer and just finished cutting 6 to 7 foot tall haygrazer on this field. Did not see any brush regrowth at all. Weeds were pretty much non existent. Pulled up some haygrazer stalks to see root growth and roots are easily 10 inches deep. So should help the soil in the long run.
> But yeah bringing a field back from the wild isn't always easy.
> Have another field I cut on shares, I get 3/4 of the hay. About as rough as field as there is. But actually weed free but crap grass on it and it just doesn't seem to make grass. Maybe got 2 bales an acre off it all of last year. I really have not fertilized it other than 2 ton of chicken litter. Guess that field I need to take a disc to it and plant some klien grass or somthing.


Sounds like a perfect situation for Remedy and diesel... 1 gallon of Remedy 3 gallons of diesel to make a 25% mix, then spray the bottom foot to foot-n-a-half of the trunks all the way around with a spot sprayer... it'll nuke huisache and mesquite dead as a doorknob. Haven't found anything it really WON'T kill actually. We did the Shiner farm starting about 15 years ago or so, had a bunch of old crossfences getting overgrown and making a mess... and the more trees ya got, the more you get. Birds eat the seed and then poop them out up and down the fencelines every time they perch on a wire, or land out in the pasture and take off again. So, we had mesquite and huisache popping up everywhere, and it don't take long for that crap to get SO thick and big the only way to reclaim the pasture is with a D6 and root rake.

I took out trees up to 3 foot diameter with the stuff, as well as some overgrown "thickets" where you couldn't even get to the tree trunks themselves for the brambles and greenbrier and other junk... Just fogged it in there as best I could, roasted all the crap, and then came back the next year and finished off the trees... Gave the full-fledged trees in the fenceline a year to die and dry out, and the next year we could push them and the fenceline out with the Ford 5610 and front end loader, no problem... pushed it all in burn piles and burned it. It took us about 3-4 years to knock down the old cross-fences and wipe out the major infestations, but after that it's really tapered off so now we're basically on an every-other-year maintenance program, just riding around back and forth on the farm with the golf cart and electric sprayer hitting "switches" as they come up, usually when they're between one and 3 feet tall... usually all it takes on them is a good squirt of the stuff to kill them dead as a hammer. Works great on bois d'arc too, as we had some of that stuff, and it spreads bad too if you don't wipe it out. My brother and I just finished hitting it all a couple weekends ago... He drives the golf cart, and I ride shotgun running the sprayer wand(s)... he searches ahead and everything to the left about 25 feet out, and I search ahead and everything to the right about 25 feet out, so we take about a 50 foot swath... he spots anything he circles around it for me to give it a shot, and if I spot anything I point it out to him so he can swing around for me to pop it... This year we actually ran two sprayers at once; the hand pump-up sprayer we ran Remedy/diesel for the basal bark treatment, and the electric 14 gallon we ran a mixture of "cactus juice"-- Pasturgard and crop oil sticker with a green dye marker... we hit all the prickly pear outbreaks we could find with it-- only the second time we've done that we've wiped out probably 90% of our prickly pear already! We only had to use about a gallon of Remedy and about maybe 2 gallons of Pasturgard this year to do 160 acres and 2 miles of fence around it... Got videos of it up on Youtube on my channel, "luke strawwalker"... works great! Jay did the Needville farm here by himself over a couple of evenings this week after work...

The Remedy will kill it roots-n-all in pretty short order, and for those bigger trees in the 3-4 inch range, let them dry down where they are and the next year pushing them out roots-n-all is real easy even with a 70 horse chore tractor and front end loader... I think the biggest one I pushed out was about a foot diameter trunk after it died and dried down... they come out pretty easy if you give them a little time, and leave the pasture real nice. You can't even tell where the old fencelines were anymore! The Pasturegard works slower on cactus because of the fact that cactus has an EXTREMELY slow metabolism... takes about 6-12 months to completely kill it dead, but it gets sick after about 2-4 weeks and yellows right up over time before it croaks. Really is nice to get rid of prickly pear!

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Chase72 said:


> I've noticed that usually when you use chicken litter that a ton of weeds appear with it, maybe that's just my local chicken houses, but I would never use chicken litter on my fields


Years ago when I was establishing a bermuda patch in an old cotton field, I called the egg farm over the other side of the next town to price out chicken litter... they're a BIG egg operation, and they started a bermudagrass hay operation to make use of the excess manure effluent (they pump it on the grass through sideroll irrigation equipment, and the black water coming out of the sprinkler heads is something to see-- but the stink in 100 degree heat could gag a maggot five miles away-- don't see how they get away with it myself!) They've also started doing carpetgrass sod for new developments... Anyway, I called the guy to get a quote and he asked me about my tractor and stuff how big it was, and I told him it was a 70 horse Ford and he was like "well, our spreader's awful big, but if you only load it half full you can get by" and discussed my grass crop and patch and stuff and he did some figuring and came back that I'd need 4 semi-loads of litter and the spreader for a couple days, and figured it all up and gave me the numbers. I asked him what the actual analysis was on the litter-- how much actual NPK it actually had in it, and he gave me those numbers-- something like 3-2-2 IIRC... SO I went home and did some figuring-- I'd called the local ag supply and priced regular dry fertilizer in a spinner spreader cart... I only needed about 3-4 tons IIRC and got the price for it delivered in the spinner spreader cart. When I started figuring the per-acre costs, I was amazed because every time I figured it, the chicken litter was coming out HIGHER in cost per pound of N, P, K than the dry fertilizer... That didn't seem right so I called the egg farm rep back and ran my numbers past him, figuring I had made a stupid goof somewhere in the numbers... He listened carefully then said, "Nope, your numbers are right-- the chicken litter IS higher... See, we have all these organic rice farmers around here and they're NOT ALLOWED to use regular dry fertilizer or liquid or anhydrous on their fields to fertilize the crop and comply with the organic rules, that stipulate "no chemical fertilizers"... SO, they will pay a PREMIUM to get chicken manure to put down on the organic rice fields, and so they buy massive quantities of it! So yeah, it's higher priced..." I was like "okay, thanks" and hung up... didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that dealing with 4 semi-loads of sh!t and a spreader on 20 acres was gonna be a h3ll of a lot more trouble than calling the ag supply and having them mix me up a batch of dry and pulling it out here in the spreader and dropping it off in the front yard, hitching the tractor up to it, flipping it in gear, and hauling @ss across the field for an hour or two to spin it all out, then going in the house for an iced tea and calling them back to come get their empty spreader!!! Plus it being cheaper to boot! LOL

Crazy world... OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Stxpecans123 said:


> Here is a picture of what the field looked like, not the same field but good idea.
> Also picture of the haygrazer progress.


Wow really nice looking haygrazer... congrats! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

dvcochran said:


> If I understand correctly haygrazer and johnsongrass are in the same family.


Haygrazer is sorghum/sudangrass cross. Related to johnsongrass, yes, but so is corn and grain sorghum... OL J R


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

luke strawwalker said:


> Years ago when I was establishing a bermuda patch in an old cotton field, I called the egg farm over the other side of the next town to price out chicken litter... they're a BIG egg operation, and they started a bermudagrass hay operation to make use of the excess manure effluent (they pump it on the grass through sideroll irrigation equipment, and the black water coming out of the sprinkler heads is something to see-- but the stink in 100 degree heat could gag a maggot five miles away-- don't see how they get away with it myself!) They've also started doing carpetgrass sod for new developments... Anyway, I called the guy to get a quote and he asked me about my tractor and stuff how big it was, and I told him it was a 70 horse Ford and he was like "well, our spreader's awful big, but if you only load it half full you can get by" and discussed my grass crop and patch and stuff and he did some figuring and came back that I'd need 4 semi-loads of litter and the spreader for a couple days, and figured it all up and gave me the numbers. I asked him what the actual analysis was on the litter-- how much actual NPK it actually had in it, and he gave me those numbers-- something like 3-2-2 IIRC... SO I went home and did some figuring-- I'd called the local ag supply and priced regular dry fertilizer in a spinner spreader cart... I only needed about 3-4 tons IIRC and got the price for it delivered in the spinner spreader cart. When I started figuring the per-acre costs, I was amazed because every time I figured it, the chicken litter was coming out HIGHER in cost per pound of N, P, K than the dry fertilizer... That didn't seem right so I called the egg farm rep back and ran my numbers past him, figuring I had made a stupid goof somewhere in the numbers... He listened carefully then said, "Nope, your numbers are right-- the chicken litter IS higher... See, we have all these organic rice farmers around here and they're NOT ALLOWED to use regular dry fertilizer or liquid or anhydrous on their fields to fertilize the crop and comply with the organic rules, that stipulate "no chemical fertilizers"... SO, they will pay a PREMIUM to get chicken manure to put down on the organic rice fields, and so they buy massive quantities of it! So yeah, it's higher priced..." I was like "okay, thanks" and hung up... didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that dealing with 4 semi-loads of sh!t and a spreader on 20 acres was gonna be a h3ll of a lot more trouble than calling the ag supply and having them mix me up a batch of dry and pulling it out here in the spreader and dropping it off in the front yard, hitching the tractor up to it, flipping it in gear, and hauling @ss across the field for an hour or two to spin it all out, then going in the house for an iced tea and calling them back to come get their empty spreader!!! Plus it being cheaper to boot! LOL
> 
> Crazy world... OL J R


I have a next door neighbor with 4 houses. He spreads it out and all and yes nitrogen is cheaper but way cheaper for the p and k. I think I Know the outfit you speak of and I agree every other place I have priced chicken litter is much higher and I have to spread it. So if I didn't have a neighbor with 4 houses across the fence I wouldn't be doing it.


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

luke strawwalker said:


> Haygrazer is sorghum/sudangrass cross. Related to johnsongrass, yes, but so is corn and grain sorghum... OL J R


The one in the picture is sweet later grazer BMR. Meaning it is a delayed maturity and the BMR is brown mid rib trait. Makes more leaf and the stalk has much more digestiblity. Infact I left a strip next to the fence uncut just to see when it would actually head out. Has not headed out yet and it was planted March 25th. Not sure about protein, sent a sample out to Texas A&M for nitrate and protein and all that. They sure take their sweet time to get the results. Wanted to know where I was to figure my fertilizer input for the regrowth. Well looks like the rains are done so I guess I missed the window.


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## Stxpecans123 (May 18, 2020)

Here is forage analysis.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Some huge % of feed passes through chickens undigested. Since chickens eat weed seeds fine too they don’t have much reason to clean them out of the feed. Lot of the calcium / lime passes through too in the laying hens.


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