Alternatives Techniques for Sprigging Coastal Bermuda

[em14]

Red Level ... The way you described sprigging is the way we did it years ago ... farm was just West of Auburn!
Leo

[EddieWalker]

Red Level,

Thank you for sharing such detailed information. I watched what they did on my neighbors land, but never thought about what they were doing. A manure wagon is probably what they used!!!!! It sure looked like one and nothing like the pictures in your links.

He has a pretty good stand of grass and hayed it last year. He was excited by how many round bails he got, but he doesn't have a use for them, so they just sit there.

Since I'm not interested in bailing hay, common bermuda is exactly what I'm interested in. Or I should say, was interested in. Meadowlarks thread on Tifton Bahia sounds real interesting, and that might by my next pasture.

Thank you,
Eddie

[em14]

Eddie ... there is a lot Bahia in use as large area "lawn's" here in Florida ...
Leo

[CTW]

For what was involved, I don't see why just throughing it out wouldn't work either. If you had access to the sprigs, which to my understanding are just fresh cut bermuda hay, and they drag it into the ground, you could do this by yourself.


Eddie

Eddie you're right about that. My grandfather bought coastal sprigs down in Sandia, Texas in the 60's and my dad sat on the back of a trailer throwing them out onto a freshly disced field. He covered it lightly, prayed for rain and the coastal grew beautifully. I used to laugh at the Aggie college students who would come down and study the coastal that did so well. The same grass still grows there today and now I truly understand their interest and love for this type.

[gabby]

However you sprig it, the soil must be plenty moist and packing the sprigged soil should be the last step. If you don't use a sprigging machine with packer rollers, you need to roll it some other way. Use a cultipacker, tractor with a wagon behind it to create tire tracks, etc.

I once rigged up an old 3-wheeler golf cart with a tongue hitch and pulled it behind a farm wagon and tractor to make 7 tire tracks with each pass. The sprigs did pretty well in spite of dry weather.

One corner of the field didn't get packed and very few of those sprigs lived. Packing helps conserve soil moisture and assures good soil contact with the sprigs.

[pls2591]

how to build a sprigging machine for spreading coastal clippings