Overseeding Grass

[Lone Wolff]

My backround:
New house construction on a 5 acre lot. The existing property was part of a large brome grass pasture in it's former life. Now it's just my big back yard.
We have a few areas where grading/dirtwork was done around an outbuilding and septic lagoon, and I want to hit it with some seed this spring. I know that fall is best time, but I want to get something down before the Spring T-Storms & heavy rains erode it and the weeds take over the rest.

I've got RTF fescue sod around the house so not worried about that, just thinking about what to do with the rest of the property.

My neighbors have some of the orig brome on their lot, but they said it grows pretty fast and you have to keep mowing it about once a week April thru June.

I don't have any livestock or horses, so I'm not concerned about any forage qualities of the grass. I just want heat and drought resistance and a low height at maturity so that if I don't want to mow it, it won't get 2-3 feet tall like the brome will. I really would like something lower maintenance for the areas closer to the house and outbuildings.

I'm considering going with tall fescue for the exposed/disturbed dirt. The "regular" tall fescue at around $1/per pound of seed, like Kentucky 31, not the expensive "nice" stuff we have for the sod.


My question (FINALLY!)...

Can I overseed the brome with tall fescue? I know it'll do fine on the dirt, especially with a second seeding this fall. But I've got about 4 acres of brome that I'd like to possibly reduce/replace. I don't want to buy several hundred pounds of seed and invest the time into something if it won't work. Or work poorly.

Tilling the brome up and starting from scratch is not an option. It's overseed it with something else that will eventually take it over, or live with the brome.

Anyone have any experience good or bad with overseeding brome with tall fescue or anything else?

Thanks in advance.

 

[s219]

Fescue, and many other grasses, won't do well if they are competing with something that can outgrow it and take all the sunlight. If brome will grow taller/faster and shade out the fescue, I wouldn't expect the fescue to do very well. I'd probably put down something cheap temporarily (like an annual rye for example) and only plant a perennial like fescue after the brome has been eliminated, assuming that's what you want. But you should jump on it quick, as the window for establishing a cool season grass is almost closed.

If you don't care about appearance, then maybe you should go all out with the brome, especially if it does well in that area. You mentioned head and drought resistance, and that's not something I associate with fescue, at least in my area. Fescue can't root deeply enough in many soils to become drought resistant. You'd know better than me what the soil is like in your area.