Thin stand of hay! options?

I have a 22 acre feild that is part of a larger parcel that I have rented for the first time this year. All but about 4-7 acres is awesome thick alfalfa, really nice stand, but that 4-7 acres is pretty sickly looking. It appears the seeded pasture mix with a grain drill. There is grass there but in rows, and obviously also went very light on the seeding rate. It is lighter soil, in parts, fairly good in others.My question is what is the best practice to improve the density if the forage? I would like to keep it in a forage crop rather than till this small part up for a row crop, at least until the alfalfa on the rest of the feild starts to decline. Would it be best to wait till fall and till it and start with a new seeding? Does any one ever have good luck over seeding? Also, what types of grasses would do best on this lighter soil? I am pulling soil samples, but even if it has a lower ph than the alfalfa patches, should grasses do well any ways? Any thought and input would be greatly appreciated as I want to get a plan now, rather than at the last minute when i have row crops to worry about getting in the bins.

Go bale a field of ripe orchard grass,then come back in and bale that one. You'll have so much orchard grass in there in a few years,you'll never get rid of it.

The only way you can 'reseed' alfalfa is to plow it up, wait a year and then reseed.

Allan

I think I would till it and seed it with oats. Then when you take your Aug cutting of alf you cut this right along with it and bale it up as oat hay. I remember one time long ago Pa took some bin run corn and seeded with the grain drill. Then mowed it, raked it and chopped it for the cows. I can't remember how big it was when he cut it tho.

You"re probably right about the grass seeding. Someone seeded too lightly. But orchard grass is an agressive grass so give it a chance. Don"t invest ant time, effort, or money on it this year. Let it go to seed and stand and you"ll be surprised when the fall rains come how the stand will improve. You can cut it next year.

I think you can dose alfalfa with Roundup in the early summer and re seed in late summer and get a stand the next year. Neighbor just made his first cutting of alfalfa on a field he took the first cutting last year and then sprayed Roundup. He worked it with a field cultivator off and on until late August and re seeded it. He had a coupla low spots that got drowned out this spring but the rest of the field looks good.
I tried to fill in some very thin areas before the frost was out two years ago and might as well have seeded the tar road for all the good it did.

a good one year fix is annual ryegrass. Although im not sure if its too late now to seed it this year. But it will make lower quality, beef cow type hay.

I'm confused. This thin 4-7 acres is grass in the middle of the alfalfa?

Alfalfa can be summer seeded in mid August. I would scratch up that patch with a drag and broadcast alfalfa seed on it and roll it. Next year you will get decent alfalfa yield on it in it's first year.

Try a few bags of fertilizer.I picked up 100 bales of hay extra from a tired field.Used 3 bags of fertlizer.Urea works well on old fields.

I think I got a little lost....

Is this a new seeding of grasses next to your alfalfa field, and it is _only_ seeded to grass no legumes?

A new seeding of grass looks real weak the first year, let the stuff grow, maybe go to seed, and it will be a good grass patch next year.

If the ph is low, then the grass can't suck up the nutrients; you need to get the ph right, fertilizer won't help if the ph is wrong - low ph and the acid in the siol binds the N,P,K, and micros to the soil particals, the roots can't pry them loose.

If there is no clover or alfalfa mix with it, then it will run out of N real badly, esp in lighter soils. Grass needs N, and lots of it, to keep productiove. My low ground, 8% organic matter, gets enough N off of what accumulates, but if you are in sandy soils, you need to spoongfeed the N to the grasses.

If there is _no_ alfalfa in this grass, I's conside ripping it up, add lime & P & K and put in alfalfa in mid August. Some grasses will come back, and you should have a nice mixed field come next summer. Csn't do that if any alfalfa is there now tho, adult alfalfa kills it's own seedlings in a 1 - 2 foot circle, that toxin is active for a good 3 months (of good weather, not over winter!) even after the adults are killed.

Overseeding clover into the weak hay might be an option, but very hard to time right and catch rains to make the clover go, might end up seeing more of the clover sprout next year than this, but it will do it;s thing when it gets there.

Adding ryegrass or oats is good for getting another cutting or so off of it. Maybe getting a little late for this....

If something else is going on, sorry I didn't quite understand.

--->Paul

Won"t work if the patch was in alfalfa, due to autotoxicity. Will be fine to interseed grass in it now.