# Teff grass



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Teff grass production guide.

http://www.producerschoiceseed.com/documents/TeffGrassManagementGuide.pdf

Need seed?I have seed.Send me a PM or give me a call Cy 507-360-0251


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

As soon as temps allow, I am going to plant 10 acres. I am hoping to follow my winter Rye eventually to double crop instead of leaving that ground fallow. We normally harvest the rye, the last week in May or the first week in June. I will keep you posted on it. I will say that it is not cheap by any means, but 10 acres will hopefully give us some answers without breaking the already broken bank!


----------



## ButchAutomatic (Jun 4, 2008)

I have 12 bags of teff seed will sell for $80 a bag


----------



## RFHay (Jan 24, 2010)

I was planing on overseeding an old stand of alfalfa this year with it. Gonna wait till after frist cutting comes off in a few weeks though. Any thoughts on this?


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

Is it coated by chance?


----------



## Rodney R (Jun 11, 2008)

Overseeding and existing stand..... It'll work with limited success. If it turns dry, you'll see very little teff. If it's wet enough, it might do well, but I wouldn't take the chance, here. I've got about 20lbs of that stuff left, and I'll give it to whoever comes in the driveway. I fussed with it for 3 years (planting after precut rye) and enough is enough.

Rodney


----------



## kingranchf350 (Dec 13, 2009)

I agree with Rodney - I had 18 acres of Teff last year and it was my last year with Teff. Thin stand(even at 15 ib/acre), Very prone to lodging, not great yielding in this part of the country. Cut it one time, then armyworms got in it, then half the stand died. NOT A TEFF FAN!!!!


----------



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I see over at Hay & Forage they had a survey on Teff.About half were satisfied and half not.

Funny how some Experts praised the heck out of it.









Somewhere I seen it called the "Love it or Hate it Forage"

I say plant at your own risk.









I have coated or uncoated available.


----------



## SouthField (May 11, 2010)

We've grown it for 3 years (this will be our 4th). We've never had any problems with it even though we do not irrigate it. Lodging (falling over) is a problem if you ignore all the studies that show that adding nitrogen is generally not a good idea. Our experience shows that there is no gain seeding over 6-8lbs per acre. we'd prefer to no-till but that isn't really possible with Teff. We've had very good success with broadcasting just before a rain and dragging a chain link harrow (made from old chain link fencing) behind the broadcaster. If you use a seeder you really don't want to go down below 1/8-1/4 of an inch with 1/4 being the absolute extreme max depth. Teff seed is extremely small so having to fight it's way 1/4 of a inch before it starts replenishing it's reserves with sunlight is tough for it to do. Any seeder will require a "small seed box" attachment to be able to handle the small seed size.

Teff grows fast. It can be mixed with other things but they have to be pretty aggressive if they want to keep up. We don't sell our Teff and we only went with it after giving our animals free choice selection. Out of all of our hays and pasture forages Teff was preferred the most and was seconded by Sainfoin regardless of animal (horses, cows, llama, and goats). We offered timothy, orchard, jigg, tifton, a varriety of clovers, and alfalfa. Nutrient-wise Teff is comparable to cold season grasses like Timothy. However, if you spray any sort of preservative during haying you are going to have a lot of unhappy animals. We tried offering "treated" hay along with the others during the free choice tests and those weren't even touched if anything else in fair-good condition was available.

Reseeding anything is annoying but we are going to experiment with letting the final growth go to seed, and then very lightly tilling in the spring. We have a rotary tiller and will see if we can just break up the surface enough to give the Teff seed a chance when it hits the ground. This might be a compromise between no-till and regular tilling. We've found that regular tilling is pretty darn hard on the soil health. We've also found that chemical fertilizers are also extremely hard on the soil health - especially the Mycorrhizal Fungi and other components of the microbial community in a healthy soil. Going with a homemade biochar has also offset our needs for any additional amendments. We had never heard of either until a few years ago and what a difference both have made. For background on Mycorrhizal fungi you can check out Mycorrhizae Inoculants for better plant roots and healthier plants. . For biochar, do a search on Terra Preta, or biochar, or agrichar. Just remember that the key to making it is low temperatures for a fairly short period of time. Whoever posted that it was around 850 degrees for almost a hour was right on the money. Anything more than that and you start destroying what you are trying to create.

We didn't start out going the organic route but it turned out to be the best thing we could have done. I wish we had started 20 years ago. We have found Teff to be a great hay crop and it doesn't take much managing. If you are going to add anything keep in mind that a little bit of nitrogen goes a long, long way. Yeah, it will spring right up but it will also fall over because it grew too fast. Do your homework before you plant and try a couple small test plots. It is well worth the effort.

good luck with whatever you decide to do


----------



## Barry Bowen (Nov 16, 2009)

This is my fourth year doing teff, and the customer demand is growing. I could sell another 10 acres worth this year if I had the land to put it in. The only caution I will give people on teff is this, you do not try teff. You make the choice to do teff, and then do what it takes to get it done and make right. If you expect it to be as easy as orchard, timothy or alfalfa, you will be in for an unpleasant surprise. Horses and their owners love it when it is done right which means taking it early where you only get about 70 bales to the acre or 1 to 1.5 ton on first cut. I have had this stage come in as high as 21% on the protein.

swmnhay: The link you gave for growing teff is very good. Anyone thinking of growing teff would be served well by taking the time to read it and follow the procedures as best as possible. The author claims the brillion seeders are the best for planting, and in a perfect world probably true. How ever I have been doing mine with a 1940's IH conventional drill. I remove the drop tubes from the small seed box and this allows the seed to spread out some instead of narrow rows. I also drag an old tractor tire chain behind to cover up, and it has worked well every time so far.


----------



## TNRED (May 23, 2010)

This is my 4th year doing Teff and all have been good except for last year. The problem was that the seed I bought were suppose to be good but when we had them tested they only came back at 50% germ. 
Southfield, I tried letting the last cutting go to seed and I got about half a stand so it is possible, at least in TN. I drilled oats last fall and if it will dry up where I can get them off then I am going to run the wheel rake over it a couple of times to scratch the ground then sow the teff and see how that works. Last year the CO-OP where I bought my seed tried to tell me that the soil was too loose then they said that seeding with anything but a herd seeder would damage the seed. Needless to say, they will be the last place I go to buy any kind of seed.


----------



## dnaj11 (May 7, 2011)

Rodney R said:


> Overseeding and existing stand..... It'll work with limited success. If it turns dry, you'll see very little teff. If it's wet enough, it might do well, but I wouldn't take the chance, here. I've got about 20lbs of that stuff left, and I'll give it to whoever comes in the driveway. I fussed with it for 3 years (planting after precut rye) and enough is enough.
> 
> Rodney


Do you still have that Teff Grass? I'm in Kempton and can come right over. 610-756-3149. Dave Thanks


----------

