Grass seed mixture
- Thread starter jonny
- Start date
- Location
- Cornwall
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Sounds good to me for that type of usage.
I am only guessing as to how meadow fescue performs once the longest day has passed - in your conditions?
Here it would leave a bit of a 'quality feed' gap til it cooled down - but a couple of kg of plantain would fill that nicely if it goes dry/hot in summer?
Huge fan of Timothy in heavier damper conditions, under rated IMO - down here by the seaside it grows all year round, unless we get a big run of frosts. Good stuff.
I am only guessing as to how meadow fescue performs once the longest day has passed - in your conditions?
Here it would leave a bit of a 'quality feed' gap til it cooled down - but a couple of kg of plantain would fill that nicely if it goes dry/hot in summer?
Huge fan of Timothy in heavier damper conditions, under rated IMO - down here by the seaside it grows all year round, unless we get a big run of frosts. Good stuff.
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Was wondering about seed rate but the bag was 10kg for an acre
How does Timothy graze for sheep. Does it get stemmy ? No danger of drought here anyway normally wet enough. Does frost affect Timothy?
- Location
- Cornwall.
That's an awful lot of Timothy (more than you'd sow as a straight). I would have had Tall Fescue rather than Meadow some PRG & perhaps Cocksfoot
But what's done is done I hope the mix works really well for your customer.
But what's done is done I hope the mix works really well for your customer.
- Location
- Cornwall.
Oh, the Timothy isn't going to do much this year doesn't really get going until its second year
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Timothy is one of the more sought-out pasture grasses for sheep - due to its root habit and slightly slower growing habit it is a really nutritious and palatable species - sheep will even munch the seedheads off it whereas they will ignore stemmy ryegrass by comparison.
Frosts just slow it right down - we only get tiddly frosts here as a rule that may only freeze the top inch or so, and it still hangs on in there.
Ryegrass has had much more yield focus behind development and breeding so will outyield all else during the growing season but for a mixed farm it is cattle food unless managed to the point of reducing its persistence - grasses are very low in protein compared to legumes and the faster they grow the bigger the compromises as a general rule of thumb.
"the hare"
Timothy is "the turtle" that is only really "visible" when the big pipe-cleaners pop up but I am amazed that it isn't THE grass on many UK farms especially in the more challenging bits
folk often wonder why the grass here looks so different in summer, so green, and it is the bluegrass (poa pratensis) and timothy etc that cause it to be so "green" when most farms around look stemmy and sunburnt.My Welsh in-laws say I just need hedges to be like a wee slice of home.
We have Chewing's fescue here which is a very fine-leaved persistent fescue - almost like a turf grass, which shuts up shop in summer unless very wet.
A guy in Fiordland bred Chewings fescue about 50 years ago and yet it is still here, chugging along, filling a gap.
Timothy behaves more like an annual ryegrass in that its tillers are vulnerable and its roots are quite shallow - but also has some unusual properties that add value in that it produces tillers in autumn and spring that behave quite differently.
Animal performance on timothy pastures is usually higher than ryegrass pastures all else being equal.
I will pinch this from NZ grassland which better explains how it operates
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Nice to see some Aberystwyth varieties there.
Presto Timothy bred by DSV
Very good inclusion to any pasture if you ask any experienced farmer or grassland guru.
I would like to see some ryegrass or some hybrid rye grass in there.
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
I have one customer who grows Timothy as a straight with clover beautiful hay if a little stemmy though.
ollie989898
Member
Timothy is good stuff, very dense swards so surprising yields from it. Will be slow to get going in spring though. Wouldnt grow it as a straight myself.
Ive just ordered some grass seeds today and bought an extra bag of straight timothy to put with it in a wet field.
ollie989898
Member
2kg an acre of timothy is pretty good.
- Location
- Ceredigion
I sowed my Timothy to thick, I don't get that mix at all the Timothy will take over and knock the other grass out especially at that seed rate