Hi all,
We bought land a few years ago that was historically corn and soybeans. We started a pasture last fall by discing the field several times and then planting winter rye. It grew nicely last fall and has come up well this spring. A month ago we bought a pasture grass mix from our local co-op, which is mixed for our area with sandy soil. It's Kentucky Fescue, Climax Timothy, Amazon Tetraploid Ryegrass, and Orchardgrass. We used a broadcast spreader to apply it. We didn't work it into the soil in part because we have limited equipment available to us but also because the rye was already a few inches tall and we were worried about damaging it. Knowing that broadcasting and leaving it wasn't as efficient as other methods of application, we applied the seed at a 2.5x rate. We had a hard rain the day after seeding and we were pleased because we could see that a lot of the seed was worked into the soil by the rain. Right after we got a a couple week cold spell with some snow and 2 nights with a hard frost. I had read about frost seeding before we planted and understood that there's really no "too early" when it comes to seeding so I thought I'd be ok. It's been above 60 degrees for a couple of weeks now, and we had high 70's now for the last week or so. We've also had some good rain, including one 2.5" soaking. We still aren't seeing any germination. I can see seed on top of the soil here and there, but a good share of it seems to have worked into the soil. Am I impatient or would it seem to you that we aren't going to have success?
We bought land a few years ago that was historically corn and soybeans. We started a pasture last fall by discing the field several times and then planting winter rye. It grew nicely last fall and has come up well this spring. A month ago we bought a pasture grass mix from our local co-op, which is mixed for our area with sandy soil. It's Kentucky Fescue, Climax Timothy, Amazon Tetraploid Ryegrass, and Orchardgrass. We used a broadcast spreader to apply it. We didn't work it into the soil in part because we have limited equipment available to us but also because the rye was already a few inches tall and we were worried about damaging it. Knowing that broadcasting and leaving it wasn't as efficient as other methods of application, we applied the seed at a 2.5x rate. We had a hard rain the day after seeding and we were pleased because we could see that a lot of the seed was worked into the soil by the rain. Right after we got a a couple week cold spell with some snow and 2 nights with a hard frost. I had read about frost seeding before we planted and understood that there's really no "too early" when it comes to seeding so I thought I'd be ok. It's been above 60 degrees for a couple of weeks now, and we had high 70's now for the last week or so. We've also had some good rain, including one 2.5" soaking. We still aren't seeing any germination. I can see seed on top of the soil here and there, but a good share of it seems to have worked into the soil. Am I impatient or would it seem to you that we aren't going to have success?
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