# Spring Hay Planting



## DelawareHay (Apr 5, 2013)

So the original plan was to have my buddy put beans into my fields and then hope to have them off around the beginning of Oct to plant persist orchardgrass in one field and baroptima fescue in the other. Well he cut them today so it's too late to be planting this fall. So my question is what is the best way to go about planting my hay in the spring to avoid a lot of weed problems. 
"WEED CONTROL DURING GRASS ESTABLISHMENT
Weed management when establishing a new, grass-hay field starts with anticipating weed pressures and implementing aggressive weed control with tillage and/or herbicides before planting. Many times, effective weed control before planting dramatically improves stand establishment and limits weed populations throughout the life of the stand. A key to effective weed control before planting is triggering weeds to germinate before crop emergence. For spring planting, preparing a seedbed in late fall or winter allows winter rains to firm up the seedbed and trigger weed germination before planting. Roundup can be applied before planting to kill the new weeds while preserving soil moisture. Fall/winter tillage in combination with a spring application of glyphosate works especially well for controlling troublesome winter annual grasses such as cheatgrass, downy brome, winter cereals, and hare barley." 
http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/+symposium/proceedings/2006/06-95.pdf

Found this online. Would that be a good way of going about it? I know hardly anything about weed control so I need help. Sorry for making this so lengthy. Thank you for any help.
Kyle


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

One key for spring planted grasses in avoiding weed pressure is to plant the seed as early as possible....most of the time that depends upon your spring climate/weather. If you typically have wet winters/springs you might want to do some ground prep now. If you have alot of weeds showing now, go ahead and do a burn down(2-4d and glyphosate) and then do gly again in the spring right before planting.

Regards, Mike


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## DelawareHay (Apr 5, 2013)

Vol said:


> One key for spring planted grasses in avoiding weed pressure is to plant the seed as early as possible....most of the time that depends upon your spring climate/weather. If you typically have wet winters/springs you might want to do some ground prep now. If you have alot of weeds showing now, go ahead and do a burn down(2-4d and glyphosate) and then do gly again in the spring right before planting.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Thanks for the info Mike. I'm thinking the fields aren't showing many weeds right now. It was a pretty clean bean crop, they sprayed twice. But I should probably go and take a close look in the fields tomorrow.


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## DelawareHay (Apr 5, 2013)

Anyone else have some thoughts on this?


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## PaCustomBaler (Nov 29, 2010)

Delaware, it's just my opinion but it's an option. Do an early spring burndown if you have have had a frost this year. 7-10 days later, maybe make a granular N application, till your ground up, and drill/broadcast your seed. The biggest thing is having your soil fertility and nitrogen levels at the right spot, since you can't really do post-emergence spray on grass until it's a few inches tall. The main thing is trying to choke out the weeds by suppression from the grasses and the only way I know to do that is by N application and good soil fertility.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

On Delaware's sandy soils Nitrogen applied at seeding time could be risky


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