Discussion Board - starting a new field in hay,first time farmer

Good luck,
Dan

Personally I'm a notil kind of guy. Realizing that you are quite a bit further north than I am and I have no ide of you soil type or structure I'd lean toward recommending some type of tillage system (it is more forgiving). An important consideration is herbicide residue. Triazine herbicides can have up to 24 months of activity in the soil. Even minute traces can wipe out an oat nurse crop. A little more can casue an alfalfa failure. If possible, check with whoever raise the corn to see what was used and how much. Deep plowing could help but it could also bring triazine traces back up. Normally planting alfalfa should be planned now for the spring of 2005, not 2004. My email should be unhidden, feel free to contact me direct.

Lastly, dont skimp on seed quality or rates.

Regards,
David

All though I have no idea on the soil type or tests, northern Ind and southern MN I don't believe are that much different, both heavy black soils in general. The need for lime here in MN is general very light to nonexistant. I know in my immediate area, we have more problems with alkalin soils. I myself have several fields with spots that will test close to 8.0 pH. I did forget to mention as you did, the need for testing for boron. Boron is an important micro nutrient for alfalfa.

I used to soil sample professionally for my living and in over 30,000 acres tested in the mid 80's I can't recall a test results coming back calling for lime, although I know there are some lands requiring it regardless of where you are.

One source of lime we have here, is a byproduct from sugar beet processing. The availability of that product is very quick as far as breakdown. And it is economical also.

I have 10 head here, limited pasture and 15 acres of both grass and grass/alfalfa. For good hay for them, I need all 15 acres (mamma nature doesn't let ya get it up good all the time).

Back to prep. Try to get as many stalks worked down as possible. Grass and alfalfa seed like shallow seeding depth for best results. Fertilizer will be needed to get a good start on the seeding. Get soil samples for fert needs. If you are putting in alfalfa, try to talk the dealer into putting the alfalfa seed into the slurry mix, it works great up here (have done it myself, alfalfa still goin well after 5 yrs) seed grass and cover (if you want cover crop, direct no cover seeding is catching on up here) crop before fertilizing, fertilize and just drag or run a packer over the field. If you can time the rains right, preferably do the fert just before the rain to minimize possible fert burn.

I know that others will have a few things to say that the above won't work or caution about. But it has worked well for me in the past.

When I did the above on 8 acres (direct seed with the fert no cover), I sprayed Buctril (pretty sure, memory is a bit foggy after 5 yrs) when the alf was at the 3rd trifoliate (labeled for alf at that stage) to control broadleaves. In June took off a crop of "foxtail" hay of about 60 - 70 bales an acre (horses loved it). Mid August took off about 50 bales of alfalfa/ac and left the field to set up for wintering.

After 3 yrs of straight alf, ran through the field with a parabolic ripper (twice checkerboard pattern), leveled, interseeded a grass blend. This past year(2nd for the grass)I took off about 200/ac (60#) bales off the field. If the weather would have cooperated at the end of June, I could've done a 4th cutting. My straight grass last year only gave me one cutting, no rains from July on.

Good luck
Bruce