Kyhayman and others - millet question

3020jd2955 · Jun 17, 2011

I have been planting quite a bit of foxtail millet after baling all the small grain as a double crop before new small grain/hay seedings in the fall.

My question, can you plant millet into existing pure timothy stands and get a good crop of millet without damaging the timothy stand? I have a good bit of pure timothy and here in VA it is a one cut crop. Would really like to be able to get some use out of the timothy acreage later in the summer. But, I dont want to do something that will cause harm to the timothy stands.

The timothy fields are cut pretty short and always go dormant after cutting, so I would think the millet could get established with adequate moisture. Would something like this work?

Thanks for any advice.

kyhayman · Jun 19, 2011

My gut feeling is it wouldnt be good for the timothy stands. The millet is going to pull a lot of water, timothy has a really shallow root system and while the plant is dormant there is respiration and activity below ground and photosynthesis above ground.

As an option, drill in the millet, and then drill in timothy after its cut. Timothy isnt alleleopathic and does well when fall seeded. Plus the seed is pretty inexpensive. I think I paid 1.25 a pound this spring and at an 8 pound per acre rate thats just 10 bucks an acre. The millet should be worth more than that costs.

3020jd2955 · Jun 20, 2011

Thanks. I was thinking about trying it mainly on some older timothy stands that were going to be freshened up this year or rotated out in the next year anyway. So, might try it on some of them and leave the newer stands alone. Appreciate the reply!

Kyhayman and others - millet question

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kyhayman

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