# Planting Rye Grass



## C & C Cattle and Hay

I have a really nice 60 acre Bahia hayfield that I have been improving for the last few years and now production is starting to get pretty strong. This field is completely fenced and has water on the property so I have thought about getting my last cut off of the field in the Fall near the end of September and then drilling ryegrass in to graze my cows on during the winter and then pull them off around February and let the ryegrass recover and then possibly cut it for hay late spring since the Bahia starts up later anyways. Does this sound like a practical plan? I don't want to mess my hayfield up so if this could damage anything please let me know so I can adjust accordingly. It wont be real heavy traffic probably 25 head or so. Thanks for any advice!!!


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## Bonfire

I do it with wheat and bermuda grass pastures.


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## eam77

I did that last fall. I won't do that again. Problem #1 is that the bahia persists too late, expecially if the weather is good. So if you plant too early, the bahia will starve out/shade out the ryegrass. If you wait till the bahia is beginning dormancy, you will be too late for any fall ryegrass benefit. Problem #2 is that ryegrass gets ready for hay too early in the spring. Though you intend to get the ryegrass off in time to not hurt the bahia, a few rains at the wrong time, and then, wet fields waiting to dry out--- all will push you late enough that you will damage the bahia stand. If I had a good hay field I would not ryegrass it.

Now, Bonfire, on the post above said yes, but he said "pastures". I find ryegrass fine on pastures. Graze down the bahia (or bermuda) really short and drill ryegrass October 1 to 15. If your soil has some fertility in it, don't fertilize until the ryegrass is up and growing. Then fertilize according to your stand and grazing needs. In early February, do nitrogen (assuming you need the grass). Graze out completely by early May to let you summer grass go.

Last, I really do like to do clover with ryegrass. Crimson, Red, White.


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## Bonfire

eam77 said:


> Now, Bonfire, on the post above said yes, but he said "pastures". I find ryegrass fine on pastures. Graze down the bahia (or bermuda) really short and drill ryegrass October 1 to 15. If your soil has some fertility in it, don't fertilize until the ryegrass is up and growing. Then fertilize according to your stand and grazing needs. In early February, do nitrogen (assuming you need the grass). Graze out completely by early May to let you summer
> grass go.


Bingo! I stockpile fescue, move the cows to it in October. Plant my wheat as dormancy begins with the Bermuda grass. Fertilize in February and bring the cows back late February early March.


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## Tim/South

My biggest concern with drilling a hay field to graze over the winter would be the manure and the mess feeding in a hay ring causes.

I suppose a person could drag the field when the ryegrass was short just after the cows were pulled off. Grazing in the winter does tend to add to soil compaction with cows walking on wet ground.

I know a man who drilled 200 acres of a 700 acre farm in ryegrass. He grazed it all winter and pulled the cattle off in early Spring. He fertilized then baled the rye when it matured.


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## vhaby

Current research, extension, and producer wisdom says not to overseed hay meadows with cool-season annuals. I don't overseed our hay meadow, but volunteer ryegrass and other winter grasses proliferate in this meadow, even in the fall standing hay, so while I wait for seeded rye, ryegrass, and clovers to grow to a grazeable stand in the pasture, I feed hay to the cattle off-site, but connected to the hay meadow and allow the cattle graze on the hay meadow. The surface soil is sandy loam to about 15- to 24-inches deep so the cattle do little or no compaction on these soils. Also, the volunteer grasses contain high protein so the cattle excrement is on the loose side, meaning there are few piles to be raked into the hay windrows and baled. After I move the cattle to the cool-season annuals pasture, I fertilize the hay meadow and allow the annuals on the hay meadow to mature as the Coastal bermudagrass reaches hayable stage, and then I cut and bale the annuals with the bermudagrass at a height of about two inches above the soil surface. This allows the seed on the annuals to shatter for next fall's germination and regrowth, and misses most of any taller-standing cow patties. Setting the rake at this height also helps eliminate raking cow patties into the windrow.


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## C & C Cattle and Hay

If the Bahia smothers the ryegrass out in the hayfield will it not smother it out in the pasture as well? I'm just lookn for ideas for less hay consumption, the weather has drastically impacted my hay quantities. Is there anything better that could be drilled in my pastures?


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## vhaby

The link below will give you some answers to your questions. You don't necessarily want to destroy all your existing vegetation, but you need to reduce the vegetation to about 2 inches height, and then disk lightly to turn up some loose soil to give you better soil seed contact. Other than this, the directions in the link below that will give you some guidelines to follow.

http://forages.tamu.edu/PDF/Establishing%20Winter%20Pastures.pdf


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## Tim/South

C & C Cattle and Hay said:


> If the Bahia smothers the ryegrass out in the hayfield will it not smother it out in the pasture as well? I'm just lookn for ideas for less hay consumption, the weather has drastically impacted my hay quantities. Is there anything better that could be drilled in my pastures?


We seem to be paddling the same boat. I am going to be hard pressed to harvest enough hay for myself. Today I looked at a 44 acre pasture to rent. It has Bermuda, Bahia and Fescue, basically stockpiled with 3 pasture pet horses on it. If they do something with the horses I am going to rent the place just to have the stockpiled grass to graze.

I am also drilling every inch of pasture I can with ryegrass except for 17 acres we are planting in Fescue next month.

I have drilled different winter grasses at one time or another. They like winter wheat the best but it does not do as well in the coldest month as the ryegrass does (for me).

I tried some locally combined mixed seed last year. It was not clean and stopped up the drill. I will go back to the store bought seed this year.

As for the Bahia choking out the rye, that has not been my experience. My Bahia does not really turn on in the Spring until the ryegrass has gone to seed. The Fescue in the Bahia lasts longer than the ryegrass for me.

This year the clover lasted longer than any cool season grazing.


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## eam77

I had very little hay the last two years-- this year looks like I will have plenty. The best ryegrass is on prepared seedbed land, mostly because you can plant it much earlier, even as early as the first week of September. Even in short pasture, your plant date is really the first week in October. Even if you mow your hayfield, close, you really can't plant until the first week in October, and then, if you get a rain and a warm week, the bahia will regrow and hurt the ryegrass (likely no fall grazing). I find less problem with bermuda than with bahia.

Some people around here are doing wheat and ryegrass as "haylage"-I have no experience with that, but have lots of experience with needing to cut ryegrass before it seeds out, as hay, but can't do it due to rain and wet fields. My first cutting this year was over-the-hill ryegrass mixed with under-performing bahia. The second cuttting was low volume and thinned stand bahia. The bahia is now (mid-August) returning to full thickness stand- good rains the last three weeks.


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## Bonfire

Tim/South said:


> We seem to be paddling the same boat. I am going to be hard pressed to harvest enough hay for myself. Today I looked at a 44 acre pasture to rent. It has Bermuda, Bahia and Fescue, basically stockpiled with 3 pasture pet horses on it. If they do something with the horses I am going to rent the place just to have the stockpiled grass to graze.
> 
> I am also drilling every inch of pasture I can with ryegrass except for 17 acres we are planting in Fescue next month.
> 
> I have drilled different winter grasses at one time or another. They like winter wheat the best but it does not do as well in the coldest month as the ryegrass does (for me).
> 
> I tried some locally combined mixed seed last year. It was not clean and stopped up the drill. I will go back to the store bought seed this year.


I like your plan. I see the same thing in January with my wheat. When it gets cold out, it goes dormant.

I try to graze the bermuda grass down as best I can. Last year, I tried drilling wheat into some taller grass (8-10"tall) trying to see how well the wheat would germinate and grow up thru the grass. I was about a week in front of the first frost. Shoot, by December I could see every drill row out there.

I know of folks in OK who NT wheat into every pasture acre they have and run stocker cattle thru the Winter and Spring.


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## eam77

Bonfire-

Yes, we have some here who try to no-till drill every acre of pasture. I did about 60 acres of ryegrass this last year. That was too much unless I want to do more cattle---and I could have doubled, or more, production, with more fertilizer. I believe that if you want to stay in the cattle business long term, you should buy a no-till drill and plant everything, every year, except your best hay field. But, complications and expensive. Don't plant ryegrass unless you can fertilize it (or have chicken litter), don't fertilize to grow more grass unless you have the cattle to utilize it. Rye, wheat, oats, ryegrass-- bad risky for hay--ryegrass is best, but hard to find weather to get it saved as hay. Especially hard to get dried for hay if you really fertilize.

Our real thrust needs to be grow more grass, as close as we can get to year-round. Use less hay overall. Use your best field for summer annual haying, and be open to baling any field any time you have more grass that your cows need.


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