# Cover Crop or No Cover Crop



## LenworthAcres (May 9, 2011)

Hi we live in Alberta, Canada and this is our first year owning a farm. We are planting our hay crop this year. Its a mixture of 20% alfalfa, brome, orchid grass and timothy. Do we do a cover crop or not (thinking oat?)? We keep hearing different things. One person at the local feed store told us that a cover crop will drown your alfalfa... Also if you do a cover crop what the ratio... The hay mixture that we are purchasing is 13 lbs/acre...
Thanks!!

P.S. - Canola crop was there last year...


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## K WEST FARMS (Apr 4, 2011)

Lenworthacres : If you are located on hilly ground, some type of cover crop is helpful in preventing erosion for the first month or so. I farm relatively flat ground but have long slopes to deal with. I usually use 1 bu. of oats, but this year I am going to try some annual rye grass. It should come as quick as oats and not have the height problem ( shading of alfalfa- grass mix ), and will not have the fiber or grain problem of oats if timely cutting not possible. Good luck to you, I'm going on 45 years doing this and as you can see, I'm still trying to find the better way !!! Have a good first year !! And WELCOME to Hay Talk. John


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

For a spring seeding you'll need some sort of cover to help keep the weeds out. I've always used bin run oats myself. Don't waste the extra money buying "seed" oats. For a cover bin run oats work fine. Just goto your local feed mill and buy 50 pound bags of whatever they use in their feed blends.


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## OneManShow (Mar 17, 2009)

We've planted gray oats as a nurse crop a couple times, it didn't work out well in either instance, as both years we experienced pretty late springs, and as a result we couldn't get the oats cut and baled until it was getting a little on the rank side of things. So we ended up with about 300 tons of marginal hay (the same problem K West mentioned above) I also think the oats really slowed development of the orchard grass because they sucked up the lions share of the available nutrients and water and kept the young orchard grass plants in the shade when they needed sun the most. Had good luck with cool weather (fall) growth on hilly ground with a mix of rye, endophyte free forage fescue, orchard and festulolium-makes good hay too. The rye comes in pretty fast in the fall and doesn't wreck the other grasses in the spring and the fescue will keep the hay nice and green for the horse gals. When we last planted oats I think we seeded at 25lbs per acre-not much as oats go, but still enough to mess up the intended crop.


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## LenworthAcres (May 9, 2011)

Thanks everyone!


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## kylemckerral (Mar 10, 2010)

hey there i also live in alberta 1 hr west of edmoton and have a small hobby farm ( 300acres +/-. this spring i seeded 150 acres to a 80% alpha 20% timmothy mix. with no cover crop @ 12 pounds per acre. and so far it is coming up awsume, no weed issues etc. but i did spray ( round up) on this land last fall,to kill everything. it was pasture before. i think the biggest thign when seeding hay is to have a good firm seed bed, with no lumps/ sod etc. since your land was canola before it should work up decent, and not be sodY. I rolled/packed my land befor i seeded it as well i had to go over it with the disc 5 times to break up and sod lumps since it was pasture before. what part of alberta you from, and how many acres you doin?


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