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O/T: Sudangrass again

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member

Well, it looks like it safe to say that my experiment with Sudangrass was a failure. Even though I mowed off at 6in, most of it is not coming back strongly at all. Only where it was shorter around the shady field edges or where growth was hurt by pooling water is it regrowing nicely. Where it was 6ft tall, there is mostly just stems now. Also, my JD 925 MoCo really chopped the crap out of all the leaves as I cut so a lot of them didn't make it into the bales.

I don't think I will try Sudangrass again next year. kyplowboy suggested Pearl Millet which I might try. Does anyone else have a suggestion for a single season hay crop to use between alfalfa stands?
 
6ft. tall?? Supposed to cut it around 30inches, and before it ever has a chance to head out. Do that and see if it regrows....it will, and will make better hay to boot(not as course).
 
Fall planted oats and Austrian winter peas. Makes great hay (or these days, round bale silage). Oats and vetch used to be a favorite around here, but what with vetch reseeding itself so promiscously, you'd pollute your alfalfa stand. Maybe even just oats- the peas were to put some nitrogen into the ground for pasture grass to follow, which you wouldn't need with alfalfa.
 

> 6ft. tall?? Supposed to cut it around 30inches,
> and before it ever has a chance to head out.

Yeah, tell that to the weather though :) It's been far to wet here to cut it until now. The seed company for this variety says to cut it at 40" for max hay yields and I would say the field averaged about 40", but there were quite a few plants at 6ft. Only saw a couple of heads though.
 
If you cut any grass before it heads out, it should re-grow- but the closer it is to heading, the poorer the regrowth. Sounds like most of the plants were in the "heading mindset", if not actually to that stage.
 
Depends on how many cuttings you want to make, but my suggestion would be either oats or an annual rye grass, as both germinate very easy, have good growth, and make fine hay. And, they are relatively inexpensive. I do not have enough experience with pearl millet to give any advice, but have also heard good things. Good luck!
 
kyplowboy emailed to say don't give up and give it a chance to come back. Well he was dead on. It's been about 2 weeks since cutting an BOOM the stuff has exploded back to life. Each stem has about 4 or more new shoots coming out. They are coming out from below ground level which threw me. I didn't know sudangrass regrew like that. If this rain keeps up, it should still have time to yield nicely. With all those extra shoots it should be a lot leafier as well.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.
 
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