# Sweet Vernal Grass



## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Looking over one of my fields this morning and there is one area in it where the sweet vernal grass is growing like crazy! The Timothy is plenty there too, but the vernal grass is growing much faster. The stems are so thin, as well as the leafs, so while its competing, the stuff isn't smothering the Timothy. We are small enough of a hay operation that we can segment/grade our hay when storing it, so I'll bale up the vernal grass and sell it as a Timothy mix.

Question is - other than killing off the field, any other way to deal with sweet vernal grass in Timothy? The stuff puts out a ton of seeds, I'm not sure killing and replanting gains much as the legacy seed bed is so great and it's eradication is complicated by its earlier than hay harvest life cycle.

I'm to understand from reading that sweet vernal grass IF allowed to mold can cause internal bleeding issues with horses, but can't really find it's been an epidemic problem across the US. When I go on Craigslist, I see the stuff in pics of square bales and it's everywhere around here. I know sweet vernal grass (and the presence of other weeds) is a reflection of poor soil. What's puzzling to me is this field is in very good shape, has a PH of around 6.3 and is fertilized per soil analysis - so it ain't a "poor" field. Kind of makes me think sweet vernal grass likes "good" soil too!

How do you deal with sweet vernal grass? No problems ever, bale it up - sell it as part of your premium bale, it's never seen in your hayfields, got some in every bale, the "sweet" smell of it helps sell "green" hay and worse case it offsets the vinegar smell of the buffered propionic acid...

How do you deal with sweet vernal grass?

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

PH of 6.3, is that good for timothy in YOUR area? IDK, but I shoot for 6.7 or better PH in MY area, on MY hay fields.

Larry


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

r82230 said:


> PH of 6.3, is that good for timothy in YOUR area? IDK, but I shoot for 6.7 or better PH in MY area, on MY hay fields.
> 
> Larry


My bad. I looked again and the PH is 6.5. This was from a soil sample analyzed from VA Tech. They did not recommend any more lime this year for this field. I've got another field that came back at 5.7 PH and it got lime back in the fall. Penn State recommends a PH between 6.0 - 7.0 for Timothy.


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