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Teff grass hay

I've grown and baled it before. It need water, something we don't always have.

It was good hay, decent protein. My biggest draw back was it needs planted every year and didn't do worth a darn in out hot dry area, the good spots were fine stemmed.
 
It's all tifton 44 or 88 down here. Even the old stand by coastal hay is going away now as it just doesn't have the yields that the tifton does. Tifton can be grown AND harvested year round down here. So long as your overnight temps stay above about 45 degrees, it grows. It's a hybrid bermuda grass from what I understand. Was talking to our local hayman, and he said the county is forcing people to grow it, or lose there agricultural exemptions because it yields so much more than the coastal/bahia grass did.
 
That's different than teff. Tifton is a hybrid Bermuda as said.

Teff is actually an African grain grass that was bred for forage in the US for ethanol when that came out. Figured out it made really good hay when ethanol production was found to not be as profitable as originally thought.
 
Interesting that when I looked it up (curious, since we just put our pasture out last fall for a hopeful couple steers this spring), that there was a link for a "good crabgrass" for pasture, too. I didn't know crabgrass had any value at all.

This teff sounds like it is suited for making hay, but not for open grazing - does that sound about right?
 
Yep that's what I have found...

I may have planted a little early, it is a newer grass here, not many if any plow or plant hay every year here.

It's used in the lower state where the land is flat , I might have jumped the gun a little, it doesn't like cool ground.... I might be replanting in a month...

Bermuda is grown a lot around here in the summer, I don't feed our horses bermuda, I feed 4x5 rolls and horses can't free feed bermuda so everything I cut is fescue.....
 
First I have heard of it.

I read the webpage and it sounds interesting. Website said it liked a firm seed bed, shallow and typical good soil contact (but maybe slightly more important than others). Sounds like it needs to be cultipacked. And it was fine and hard to sow. Coated made it a bit easier as it helped make the seed bigger. So how did you plant it?

Just from the website I would have thought needs to be planted in last of April first of May ( and through middle May probably good) around here as a late cool snap stunted its growth. How are other grasses starting around you? Over here Zosyia is trying to green a little but Bermuda is still dormant here. Sister says Pollen is bad in Columbia and seems it just got appreciably heavier this last week over here. I think its still a little while before its at its worst.
 
We feed our horses 5x6 rolls of Bermuda and flakes of alfalfa.

I fed teff to cows. I no tilled it into the last year's Milo stalks that I grazed through the winter.

Crab grass is great hay around here but is frowned upon by wheat farmers so it sells cheap.
 
Yea, I know I'm early but the field is a field I'm reclaiming, it's been plowed dirt for 2 years and it was so wet all fall & winter that it needed plowing to control erosion.... I was just looking for something to plant to both keep me from working it all summer & get some added hay, I may keep this one field and start planting it into something I can feed other than fescue all the time... and I like working the ground other than just cutting hay...

The seed is about the same size as bremuda, a 50# bag fit in a 5gal bucket... I did have a soft bed after plowing but cultipacked it before I spread the seed, I used all I have, a 3pt hopper, I closed it and duct taped it up inside all but 2 small holes, about 1/16" drill size holes and moved about 6-7mph and rode around till it was gone, then packed it again, it's getting a light drizzle on it now and the field looks really good, looks like it should nice & smooth..

Excalibur was the only verity I could get right now @ 150$ 50lbs bag...

If it doesn't do good because I'm early I'll wait till May and give it another try..

On the hay forum's folks are liking the stuff, very fast & high producer... and a pain to plant...
 
Tanner, I have been reading about crabgrass also, haven't looked into the pro & con side yet, I know the crabgrass that comes up wild is hated in fields...

And the "coastal bermuda" around hear they let get so long/tall that it's so fine & stringy that horses colic fast on the stuff if free choice feeding it... cows do fine on it .. and sprigers don't come this far upstate without $$...
 
What I believe you guys are calling crabgrass is what we call bahia down here(sold as coastal). It's very stringy, but grows with virtually no water.
 
Is the crabgrass and Bermuda you feed with the same as used for a lawn? That's the 2 popular grasses in Vegas. Only cows here eat at McDonald's, not sold to McDonald's...
 
The Bermuda is similar to yard Bermuda, ours gets about knee high at best, just lays over and piles up if you don't get it cut.

The volunteer Crab Grass around here will grow 4ft tall under Irrigation, I notill bout 1/2 rate of German Millet through graze out rye pasture and pour the fertilizer to it. The Millet holds the crab grass up to prevent lodging, easier to cut and it produces more if you keep it standing.
 
I actually worked in a grass breeding research business for 6 years.

I've cross pollinated more Bermuda than I care to think about. I know the origin of Bermuda and what it's original species mature height of 3" is from Africa and is bred into most common/american Bermuda for short golf course type grass, the taller stuff is a very carefully selected hybrid I used to run genetic marker tests for a solid week and cross off which plants could be used and what couldn't.

Interesting but after you spend most of your time picking seed heads based of characteristics in 6 fields with 100 3'x3' plots, mowing and bagging each plot and blowing your mower off between plots, then fertilizing and repeating up to 5 times per summer you get burned out. But it was good beer money while in college! Haha
 
Around here Timothy is the hay of choice for horses

Yeah, most of us can't afford that stuff around here. The smaller 2 string square bales of timothy hay goes for about $13.50 a bale last I checked. Tifton 44 goes for $8 a square bale, or $50 for a round bale. We get SCREWED on hay down here compared to you guys up north. Then again, I can drive 100 miles, and buy round bales of coastal hay for $15.
 
Yeah, most of us can't afford that stuff around here. The smaller 2 string square bales of timothy hay goes for about $13.50 a bale last I checked. Tifton 44 goes for $8 a square bale, or $50 for a round bale. We get SCREWED on hay down here compared to you guys up north. Then again, I can drive 100 miles, and buy round bales of coastal hay for $15.
I thought it was green year round down there.:D
 
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