Okay, What Should I Plant?!

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

I have been asking everyone I know this question, and EVERYONE has a different answer, and calls bs on the previous 3 answers!!!!!!

Please, I just want to know what I should plant into this 5 acre field I am putting up this year.

I do not have a combine, so I need to cut it for hay.
I will not be applying any fertilizer/spray/etc.
It is wet ish ground, good sun, good drainage, clay/loam.
I KNOW from stories/pictures and stuff that it will grow oats very well.

What I am down to, is Oats. I THOUGHT that I would put Oats in, and knock them down in the milky stage for hay.

Well, now in the last few days, a LOT of people have told me to run Oats AND Peas, or Oats, Peas, AND Barley?

There is very little cattle production around here, my best possible buyer will be horse people.

I am just going to plow and disc it, nothing special.

What should I do?! And also, how many Lbs per acre of each? Oats should be around 120 per acre right? In theory, if I was doing Oats AND Peas, I should do like 55 of each right??

Thanks guys, Bryce

David G · Mar 11, 2015

You will not grow good hay without fertilizer.

Why the opposition to it?

paul · Mar 11, 2015

Horse people are picky.

I'd plant a fine stem annual grass, and bale it 'right' which means a lot of attention to detail on timing for cutting, raking, and baling. Then you get a lot of dollars per bale.

Oats with peas is a wonderful cattle feed, but horse people turn their nose up at 'junk' like that and it won't sell.

As well it is -terribly- difficult to get oats or peas to dry down for good dry hay in June in most parts of the country.

Annual ryegrass (hay, not the grain) ot teff or some such?

You are going to get 10 different answers, you need to pick the one that fits your situation.

I belive you want an 'easy' button here, no bother getting it growing but you want to sell to a horse market.

That often results in a poor weedy crop that has little value to anyone.....

I would try to plant a crop that makes great horse hay, if only a few bales, and sell high. It is easy to make a big tonnage, but moldy or course hay crop that gives you many bales, but hard to give away poor quality.

Income comes from a good, high value crop on 5 acres.

Paul

retired farmer · Mar 11, 2015

You might want to look up 'NITRATES in oat hay' before you plant them. Most horse people will not feed it to horses. Need to have the nitrate level tested before selling.

LAA · Mar 11, 2015

Look up Teff grass, high yields in the first year, supposed to be excellent horse hay but to be truthful I think the definition of horse hay has more to do with the owners than the nags. These Louisiana horses must be different from all these other fancy horses you read about on this site because every horse I ever owned or knew of would eat everything from saw briars to alfalfa and wanted more.

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

Okay, what would you suggest planting for horses then?

I am open to options when I hear things like that!!

What would you do?

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

Mainly, I just don't have a way of putting it out there! I might be able to borrow one of those 3point cones from someone, but I don't know how to properly set one up, or what kind of fertilizer to buy, or???

I guess just lack of experience at this point!! Don't know what to do!

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

Okay, something else I forgot to mention, is that it needs to be a one year crop.

The property is kind of for sale, kind of not, and the owner is pretty undecided as to what he is doing, SO, until he figures it out, I am not willing to plant a 5 year crop of Timothy, and then loose it next year when he sells the place....

So, it needs to be something that I can put in This year, and take off this year, and start over next year. (which I may have a combine by then)

todd hamilton · Mar 11, 2015

I would check with local possible future customers as to what hey look for in hay. Plant that with whatever is recommended for a cover crop. Years ago in Indiana we did wheat/alfalfa because alfalfa was thought to make the milk "sweet." As for fertilizer just plain old manure along with nitrogen from local fert company. They will apply it for you or provide an application cart you can pull with your tractor. Check with you county agent they can advise which crops do best in your area.

sourgum · Mar 11, 2015

Horse folks love single species grass for their animals. Teff could do that , but you are awfully far north to grow teff successfully. Timothy is good horse hay. Even thou it is perennial the seed is not expensive to buy. Sometimes it is planted with nurse crop of oats to keep weeds down. Your in the dark growing hay without a soil test. If you put a lot of nitrogen on a new seeding you will get lots of weeds right out of chute.

paul · Mar 11, 2015

Teff.

Annual rye grass.

As I mentioned.

There might be better options for your location, those are for 'here'. Typically a warm season grass works for a one year crop, while cool season grasses take longer to grow, but make better multi- year hay or pasture grasses. So you are looking for a warm season small stemmed fast growing grass for your area.

Fertilizer, a 19-19-19 spread at 100-200 lbs per acre is an 'easy button' way to fertilize. You don't really know where you are at when you don't know your soil, but. Grass crop will remove about that much in a year so you are about feeding what you are trying to grow. Worksaver has an online PDF manual for those cone spreaders, 90% are all the same thing from Europe.... Best to set them at 1/2 rate and go oem direction, see if you used up about 1/2 of your fert, adjust your settings to match what is left, and then travel a different pattern to spread the second half, so you don't have skips and weak stripes in the field.

There might be different mixes of fert available, but close to 19% N (needed for grasses!), 19% P, and 19% K spread at 200 lbs per acre gives you a total of 38# of each product per acre for your grass crop to grow on. That plus whatever is in your soil will make a crop, and you won't be leaving any extra fert in the ground wasted on next year. A little sulfur wouldn't hurt, 10-15 lbs per acre, but that gets specialized....

Be careful the field wasn't in corn last year; a few good corn herbicides have long term carryover and will kill grass seedlings this spring yet.....

Broadleaf weeds are gonna be your enemy, don't spray too soon but a broadleaf weed killer once the stuff is growing will make you much more, and more valuable, hay. If no weed control, have to see what happens and see if you get more weeds or more hay in the first cutting.

Paul

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

We only get one cutting up here... We have a pretty tough growing season! The local cut, is the 4th of July, that is when it is deemed "safe" to cut hay.

I might look into Timothy and Oats. Would that be pretty safe mix for horses?

I will remember 19-19-19. I will also ask the next door neighbors what they are putting on (where I work) they have been using the same stuff for years, and it is AWESOME for their crappy hay fields! They haven't plowed and planted hay in like 20 years, and they still get a pretty good yield off of their fields with this stuff... They lay it on heavy too!

jon f mn · Mar 11, 2015

You said you have thistle as I recall. If so, when you drag a plow, disc, drag and seeder through there you will have thistle in the whole field. If you don't kill that with something you will likey have a crop you can't sell.

Brown Swiss · Mar 11, 2015

I had good luck with this clover last year.
Untitled URL Link

sd pete · Mar 11, 2015

Hay is worthless with thistles in it.

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

This is a totally different field though, about 1/2 a mile away, and it is free of anything bad/invasive. No Tansy, Knapweed, Thistles, etc.

It does have some kind of flower shrub/bush thing growing here and there, they are pretty small though, and the owner hit them with a brush hog last year, so they are pretty well gone now!

gene bender · Mar 11, 2015

You asking the wrong people get with your local seed dealer he will look at your field and then will have the answer there is more than just throwing seed down.

Jeff- IN · Mar 11, 2015

Decide whether you want to crop it or hay it and then rent it to a good local farmer who is equipped for doing it on a 50/50 sharecrop. They will get much better yields from their experience and, therefore, you will probably make a lot more money and have no equipment expense, just half of the seed, fertilizer, and fertilizer inputs. You can watch them for a few years and learn how to do it well and then invest in some equipment if you want to do it yourself after that.

GordoSD · Mar 11, 2015

Instead of asking for opinions, you need to read the agriculture information. USDA publishes thousand of articles, books and pamphlets for farmers. It's all out there in written form Go find it. You have Google and the internet. Every state has it's own Ag college site. have you tried looking for Idaho ag information. Google horsefeed in Idaho? "growing grass hay in Idaho"?
Have you been to your county ASCS office?

Eldon (WA) · Mar 11, 2015

(quoted from post at 06:58:57 03/11/15) I have been asking everyone I know this question, and EVERYONE has a different answer, and calls bs on the previous 3 answers!!!!!!

Please, I just want to know what I should plant into this 5 acre field I am putting up this year.

I do not have a combine, so I need to cut it for hay.
I will not be applying any fertilizer/spray/etc.
It is wet ish ground, good sun, good drainage, clay/loam.
I KNOW from stories/pictures and stuff that it will grow oats very well.

What I am down to, is Oats. I THOUGHT that I would put Oats in, and knock them down in the milky stage for hay.

Well, now in the last few days, a LOT of people have told me to run Oats AND Peas, or Oats, Peas, AND Barley?

There is very little cattle production around here, my best possible buyer will be horse people.

I am just going to plow and disc it, nothing special.

What should I do?! And also, how many Lbs per acre of each? Oats should be around 120 per acre right? In theory, if I was doing Oats AND Peas, I should do like 55 of each right??

Thanks guys, Bryce

Plow up the sunniest acre and plant it in pumpkins. Haul them into town in the fall and sell along Hwy 95. Brush hog the rest....
you will make more than 5 acres of hay....

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

For real? Is there really that much demand for pumpkins?

Will the deer and stuff eat them real bad?

Eldon (WA) · Mar 11, 2015

(quoted from post at 10:45:09 03/11/15) For real? Is there really that much demand for pumpkins?

Will the deer and stuff eat them real bad?

Good exposure (Hwy 95) and the right price and you will move them. I figure we did $5-10,000 on an acre of pumpkins, of course we offered hay rides with them so we could charge a little more. You could find a business and set a couple of your tractors our front to draw people in. You might scout out some local stores to see if they would buy wholesale from you. Plant enough to share with the deer....seed is cheap and they don't need much fertilizer. Weeding and harvesting are the big labor consumers.

Bryce Frazier · Mar 11, 2015

Are you planting them in rows then? Might have to look into it... I am sure that I could have them all over the place on 95.. I know of 2 or 3 stores right off the bat that would let me put them there!

Dick2 · Mar 11, 2015

Talk to the local county agent; He/she should be able to give you some information that will be relative to your area.

Cory Schmidt · Mar 11, 2015

Just down the road and around the corner(literally) from me there is a large produce grower's pumpkin patch. I think the patch is near 20 acre or more. He sells lots(truck loads sometimes) and has a few wagons set up at local stores. Then he still works a bunch under.

In 5 acres you can grow a lot of variety of produce. Our sand garden is 6(we put a few in the clay on the home place too). We can almost grow enough to meet demand at local market without spraying or watering. If you plant enough the critters get there fill and you'd still have enough for your stand.

RodinNS · Mar 11, 2015

If hay is what you desire to do then that field I'd probably put into timothy/orchard grass mix... say 70/30 mixture. You could put oats down as a cover for the first year. I wouldn't go with more than 100#/ac with the oats and 80# would probably be better. If you go with 120# it will shade out the timothy and it may never start properly. Fertilizer... I'd probably go with about 1/2 tonne/5ac of 19-19-19 or something similar. You could definitely use more if you were taking a grain crop off but for this that ought to be sufficient. If you don't use some you can plan on getting nothing. I also wouldn't plan on making any money on this venture this year...
With that said, the plowing up and seeding anything of that nature is a big expenditure for one year. The timothy/orchard grass is the small part of the cost... so you may want to think about whether you want to do this at all if there's no long term deal on the land.
If you do plant the oats, I'd cut it by the boot stage and make your hay then when it still has some value in it.
I see nothing wrong with the suggestion to grow some pumpkins too if there's a good demand locally. I know there would be here..

Rod

David G · Mar 11, 2015

You can hire the local coop to deliver a buggy with fertilizer set for the appropriate density. You can work with county extension for the right seed and fertilizer rates. You WILL end up with weedy grass that NO ONE will buy it you do not do it right.

You can make real GOOD money on horse hay, but they are PICKY, owners not so much the horses. Make the bales a little smaller so the women can handle them, you can make more per acre and charge the same.

Bob Harvey · Mar 11, 2015

David G · Mar 11, 2015

Bryce,

I have read all the comments you posted here. I doubt you can make enough money on one hay crop a year to make it worth your while.

I would grow a bigger and bigger garden if you can, that would pay the most.

David G · Mar 11, 2015

That would pay.....

old-9 · Mar 11, 2015

How about sweetcorn and pumpkins? Plant sweetcorn on part 2 rows every week that will spread the crop out. And pumpkins and squash for the fall. All hand picking no combine. Just need to find customers. luck, joe

David G · Mar 11, 2015

Sweet corn can be good money if you get enough rain and keep the coons out of it. A good crop does take a healthy dose of fertilizer.

Mike Henry · Mar 11, 2015

Im with others,pumpkins and squash would go here.Maybe gourds, people love to make birdhouses.Good thing with gourds is they keep easy if they don't sell and will still salable next year. Good luck

vscummins · Mar 11, 2015

We did peas and oats cattle love it ..

paul · Mar 12, 2015

Just went to the hay sale 45 miles north of me. Took 24 bales of straw.

Hay sure is low priced now. Grass was .9 to 2.30 a bale, alfalfa 2.50 to 3.50.

Some was poor, but the good stuff seemed cheap at those prices.

Some wheat straw went 3.20, then they got to oats straw and I several piles sold $1.85. I thought oh man, I won't pay the gas to drive there I only took 24 bales.....

They got around the corner to my oats straw, auctioneer says oh nice tight bales, started at $2 and several hands went up, got $3 for mine, best oats straw I saw sell. Was happy I had a good product that sold well.

Paul

Okay, What Should I Plant?!

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