# Annual Grass like Teff Cost vs Benefit



## Royal Hollow (Mar 1, 2009)

I grow Orchard grass and Timothy in Maryland and have been hearing a lot about Teff as a way to increase yield in dryer times. I can't find a lot of info on the cost though. Does anybody have any info on the following?

Cost per acre to plant
Yield per acre in different weather/soil conditions
Comparison cost to overseeding perennials
Comparison cost to other ways to increase yield

I know there are a ton of variables, but just looking for general rule of thumb info.

Thanks


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## prairie (Jun 20, 2008)

I have sold Pharoah, Excaliber and Tiffany (coated) teff seed. From feedback from customers, all three have performed equally well for yield and quality. University variety trials generally confirm that there is not a lot of difference between most teff varieties for yield or quality.

The last couple of years there has not been a lot of difference in retail pricing of coated or uncoated seed, both at $3.75-$4.75. This year I am hearing coated seed priced cheaper than uncoated, as it should be. The coating is a 50% clay material, requiring double the seeding rate of raw/uncoated seed to have the same seed count. The only advantage of the coating, is ease of seed metering adjustment. I have not had any raw/uncoated seed customers experience major problems with seed metering. In the past you could usually plant raw/uncoated seed at 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of coated seed.

raw/uncoated seed 
$3.95/lb @ 4-6 lbs/acre = $15.80-$23.70 / acre seed cost.

I don't sell coated seed anymore, but hear widely varying prices this year 
$3.10-4.95/lb @ 8-12 lbs/acre = $24.80-$59.40 / acre seed cost

Price will vary depending on variety, raw or coated, and by vendor.


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## Rodney R (Jun 11, 2008)

I didn't know that you could get uncoated teff anymore..... It sorta aggrivated me last year - the price of a bag of the seed doubled, and it was coated - that made it 4 times the cost of the previous year! It was around $170 a 50lb bag, 25 lbs live seed.

Everybody likes to say that it's drought tolerant - I guess that just means that dry weather won't kill it. If it gets dry, it won't grow unless you water it. Gonna take about the same fertilizer program as any other grass hay, cept it might take about 1.5 times as much, if you get 2 cuttings - so about .75 fertilzer as other grass hay, PER cutting. You'll have to work the ground, or be really good at no-till.

Should yield between 2 and 4 ton/acre - just depends on the fertilizer, the rain, etc, etc. The folks that we've sold it to...... about half of them really like it, and the other half are scared by something different.

I think that the actual cost of producing it might be higher than timothy or orchardgrass, BUT it fills a little gap, and it can be planted after rye (for straw) and still get 2 cuttings.

The jury is out on the stuff - were had decided last year that we were NOT going to grow any this year, but now some of the customers like it.....

Whatever you do, don't plant much till you figure out how to sell it.

Rodney


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

there is another big discussion on this list on teff, but my analysis is that it is a good emergency crop, but nothing else, - if you sow a preniennial this spring and it floods out, sow teff for the summer then replant in a preniennial, but you must sow it conventientially, and it just doesn't yeild enough and the seed is too expensive for it to be viable as a crop - it costs the same money to establish alfalfa and it is good for 5 years + not 5 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and will outyield it every day -----------especially in a drought year - teff doesn't even have a tap root.
avoid it like the plague except in an emergency.


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## Royal Hollow (Mar 1, 2009)

Thanks for the input everybody. I like the idea of the emergency crop, but I didn't want to just trust what some advertisement said about it.


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## SouthField (May 11, 2010)

Rodney R said:


> I didn't know that you could get uncoated teff anymore..... It sorta aggrivated me last year - the price of a bag of the seed doubled, and it was coated - that made it 4 times the cost of the previous year! It was around $170 a 50lb bag, 25 lbs live seed.
> 
> Rodney


We've been purchasing our raw seed through Hankins Seed (L Hankins Seed :: Home) out of Oregon. You'll probably be talking to LaVerne Hankins if you contact them. His prices have remained stable and have always been $3 per pound FOB Bonanza, OR. Very nice folks and they don't mind dealing with small orders. We generally seed at 6-8lbs per acre but LaVerne says 5lbs per acre should be plenty. He told us that overseeding doesn't result in more gain and he was right. But when we broadcast it's hard to be exact









However, we thought it was pretty cool that he was correcting the amount of seed that we thought we would need downwards, not upwards, even though it would potentially reduce the amount we would be buying from him. That more than anything convinced us he was the producer we wanted to do business with. They have been great people to do business with over the years. I wish all of our producers/suppliers were like the Hankins.


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