Grass selection help please

JMTHORNLEY

Member
Location
Glossop
Wondering if any of you gurus out there can help me with this....?

Looking to reseed a 20 acre plot, we make hayledge first cut and silage thereafter. The issue I have is we make the haylege for a horse yard and they like the older grass, but being a very small outfit it's my only source or mowing ground and is locked up pretty much all summer growing so I can't take any more land and reseed that for some better silage fodder. The horse yard pretty much pays for my silage production so getting rid of them is a no go. I want to seed in a good quality ryegrass mixture that will benefit the cattle well but also want to keep the horse girls happy and not kill them all stone dead or end up giving them laminitis.

I need the whole crop of the 20 acre for the cattle so can't do half and half split as I'd like to mow all at once as the old ley that's here is pretty slow growing in spring.

I graze it with cattle at back end, muck it, then sheep right the way through until March then lock it up. Can anybody give me an idea of what I could reseed with or a way to make it suitable for both outfits?

Just limed all the ground so PH are all correct

Cheers all
 

Old Tip

Member
Location
Cumbria
Horses love timiothy, you want a hay meadow type mix or a specific horse mix as they can be very picky and so can the owners.
If you scratch it over stright after you take the next crop and over seed with the right seed you don't lose any production, increase yield and it's a fraction of the cost of a full reseeding.
If you have weed issues spray with glyphosate before you cut, you will get less bales but it's already dry so you haven't lost much really
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Put a mediam to late long term Ryegass ley in @Great in Grass is the online expert

^this, with some Timothy included if you like (grows early in the Spring), then buy an electric fence if you haven't got one. Make your cattle silage earlier, when it's of decent quality, then leave a proportion of the field to get older/stemmier for the nag stuff. Either take a good quality second cut from your early mown half, or use the electric fence to graze that part if you need to.
 

GAM

Member
Mixed Farmer
3.00 kilrea Early Diploid

2.00 Butara 1 Intermediate Diploid

4.00 Boyne Intermediate Diploid

3.00 Tyrella Late Diploid

2.00 Climax Timothy

14.00 kg / acre
 

GAM

Member
Mixed Farmer
how about top dressing over next few years
Sadly I can't help you with that, this is the mix I direct drilled in my Hay field. You would need to speak with Adam Simper of Wynnstay, he is a seed Expert, PM for number
 

clover

Member
Location
West Wales
Good mix without the early

How do you say that this is a good mix?
Taking out the early variety - as you suggest, as far as I can see, 3 out of the 4 varieties left are NOT on the recommended list for 2016-7 or for 2017-8
I would question the seed merchant as to why include varieties not on the list. Are they special varieties for Carmarthenshire growing conditions?
I would hope that their answer would not be - we had a few tonnes left in stock....
 

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