OT- Tifton 85 bermuda

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

Does anyone here have any experience with it either as a pasture grass or hay crop?

I got some sprigs from a friend's field the first part of July and planted them in the back yard to see what they would do. Granted, I've kept them watered, but that stuff grows almost as fast as kudzu!

jackinok · Jul 25, 2012

my experience with bermuda is that cattle will eat most everything else first. I have about 7-8 acres of it,cattle would stay out on native grass pasture even when bermuda was knee deep. One of the neighbors has several acres of midland bermuda as a test plot with osu though.he keeps calves on it mostly year round and they stay rolling fat. My opinion of course. mine has really suffered in this dry weather ,but most everything else has too.

sotxbill · Jul 25, 2012

great and hearty. We like it. Really good for hay also here in sotx.

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

From what little I've read, its supposed to be the most drought hardy variety and has the highest digestiblility.

After losing 4 years, big $$$, effort, sweat on Cheyenne II bermuda and having it be a total failure, I want to find out what others have to say before planting any.

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

Did you plant it? Was it hard to get established?

We lost 4 yrs, big $$, effort, sweat, etc. trying to get a field of Cheyenne II bermuda which was developed for our area. It was a total failure.

I want some first hand info before thinking seriously about 85.

Txsprigger · Jul 25, 2012

I've planted it for myself and others since 2000. It is the highest producing variety of bermudagrass in terms of quantity and protein. It makes excellent hay when cut at the proper stage. It can get rank and stemmy if not cut at the proper time, and is drought hardy. The drought last year did hurt it, but with good rains and fertilizer this year here in Central Tx it is making a comeback. The biggest knock on it is that it is slower to establish, slower than coastal or Jiggs. But with the right conditions, it will cover quickly as you have mentioned.

BCnT · Jul 25, 2012

buddy of mine here in Sheridan planted about 5 acres middle of march 3 years ago...he baled it middle of june...another mutual friend had a couple nice pastures and he just went out and made a couple passes with his sickle mower and loaded cuttings on a lowboy...they hand spread the 5 acres and disced it in...hit it with fertilizer about 3 weeks later and it went nuts...of course we had good rains at that time too...only bermuda i've seen that grows faster than tifton is some my dad brought home in a leaf bag...he called it king coastal...i still got it growing where my dad threw it out of bag...got a 4 foot cyclone fence along there and that stuff get 4 foot above fence in a good year...i gotta get a nurse plot going one of these years when weather is a lil more stable.
as far as horses being picky...horses get spoiled real easy...horses and mules we had on farm when i was a kid ate same as cows or they didnt eat...we baled anything that was in front of baler including salt marsh grass...Dolly was half Tn Walker and half Clydesdale...she lived to be 29 so its hard for me to swallow the "horse quality hay" theories.

DownSouth · Jul 25, 2012

Nancy, it's the #1 hay down here in the Rio Grande Valley. Sprig it, and water and fertilize it and it will love you and you will love it. Very good horse hay, and I buy it when it is affordable for my goats. Cheapest it's selling for as of today is 5 bucks a square bale. Fellow down the road sells it in rounds (not sure the price) and the semi's come rolling through when he's bailing. Gal up the road sprigged it a year or two back on about 18 acres. She was tired of buying hay, so she decided to grow her own. Only had a couple of horses so now she's selling hay and said it's quite profitable for her.
It loves heat and sunshie, but will require water and fertilizer as with most grass.

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

Horse quality hay theories are due to the fact that many horses today are not nearly as hardy as they were 40, 50 yrs ago because the majority of horses now are pleasure animals and show horses. Some high dollar show horses have such delicate digestive systems, they colic if you look at them crossways. (JMO)

While none of my horses are show horses, I did have all of my horses colic at one time because of hay. Vet came out, treated them ($$$$) and we started looking for the cause. Vet looked at the hay and it had singletary pea in it which is toxic to horses. I didn't know that at the time. So good quality hay is important even if you don't have show horses with fragile digestive systems.

I don't coddle my horses, but obviously prefer good quality hay to avoid problems like what I mentioned above.

I thank God that I have a wonderful husband who works very hard to help produce good quality hay for my horses.

Tx Jim · Jul 25, 2012

My daughter told me some horses had been killed from Nitrate poisoning while eating Tifton 85. I wish I had $5 every-time a horse told me that Johnson-grass would kill a horse. I've seen my horses(back when I had horses) walk away from good fertilized Coastal hay to eat good Johnson-grass hay. Before anyone wants to tell me,yes I know about Prussic acid poisoning in JG hay and that it dissipates(disappears) in properly cured hay in about 3 weeks. I despise the type Bahia grass that most people have around me. It chokes out Coastal and turns a funny Gray color when it baled.

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

Did an internet search and found only one incident of prussic poisoning from 85 and it was cattle. Circumstances were way out of norm - grass was exceptionally lush, cattle had been used for roping practice, had not been fed and turned out hungry & thirsty on the lush grass.

Would like to know the source of her info.

Will be sure to check this out with my ag agent.

Nancy Howell · Jul 25, 2012

My horses love JG. Had some in the pasture in Dallas when we first moved there. They killed it. Even pawed up the roots. Never had any problems with it, but we didn't have much in the pasture, either.

One issue of JG and horses is if it has heavy, thick stems. If the horses don't chew it well and its got heavy stems, its possible for the stem to puncture the gut.

Tx Jim · Jul 26, 2012

(quoted from post at 17:59:11 07/25/12)
One issue of JG and horses is if it has heavy, thick stems. If the horses don't chew it well and its got heavy stems, its possible for the stem to puncture the gut.

I've feed horses JG hay and grazed them on a JG meadow and never heard or experienced the "intestine puncturing problem. I had one horse that had impaction problems. Vet told me IF I stop feeding it Coastal hay and switch to JG hay the problems would go away and they did.

The Tifton 85 nitrate poisoning I was referring to was on "Barrel Horse World"

Anonymous-0 · Jul 26, 2012

Tifton 85 needs to be sprigged in the February-Early March time frame in Texas, needs to be dormant. I have not sprigged any Tifton 85, was to late this year to dig sprigs, next year. End of April this year I had 10 acres of Jiggs sprigged, first cutting off the field end of July, has about 85-90%% coverage, 15 to 22 inches tall. Compared to seed Bermuda, I have used Cheyenne II, Cheyenne, Mohawk, and Texas Tuff, the sprigged grass is taller, has a thicker stem, more leaves and has spread better than any of the seed variety. The hybrids will have better coverage if planted at the 10-12 lbs per acre. I planted some Texas Tuff with the sprigged Jiggs for a comparison on about 3 acres, in Late April, first cutting on that field was end of June, got 140 small squares at 60-70lbs. You can walk thru the field and see the difference in the seeded Bermuda and the sprigged Jiggs, seeded is short and thin stems, the Jiggs will have a thicker stem and leaves and creates a spider web of runners on the ground, every leaf joint can create a new plant. From my limited point of view, use a sprigged grass. Use the seeded variety in hard to reach areas, around trees, draws fence lines etc.

Tx Jim · Jul 26, 2012

Jiggs is what most people sprig around me. Some are even plowing up/spraying Roundup Coastal to sprig Jiggs

Texasmark1 · Jul 26, 2012

3 years ago a guy here quit sodbusting and put in about 300 acres of it. I know because I was going to get the sprigger to swing by my place and do mine too. He had hay the first year and with our cool winter and spring rains he is raising a bumper crop and it is beautiful. Last year he sold every square and round he had and he had a barn full of squares and rolls outside. Know he paid off some debts with that.

Mark

jackinok · Jul 26, 2012

Hey txsprigger, How hard is this to get established in a area where you cant irrigate/water it? dry to very dry is the norm where I'm at,and thats where i have the most trouble getting anything to get started.really dry now of course,bluestem is hanging on but you have to look close to see any green at all.I'm going to be looking for something to replant in places where i had to plow to stop fires.

Nancy Howell · Jul 26, 2012

Where are you located? We are in N.E. Tx about 60 miles west and a little south of Texarkana.

The Cheyenne II seed we planted came up and was awesome the first growing season, but at least 60% of it failed to come back the next year. Each year more of it would die out over the winter. We did not have severe winters those years, probably less than 10 days below freezing and no severe freezes.

The hayfield where we planted it has good sandy loam soil. We took (and continue to take) soil samples and apply fertilizer according to what the soil samples say we need. It was not the growing conditions or poor soil conditions that caused the failure. What little we have left doesn't even look like the stuff that came up the first year. It looks somewhat like tall common bermuda - very stemmy with short leaves.

We had the seed rep come out and look and didn't get an answer from him. We also had our ag agent come out and he agreed it was not the growing conditions or soil conditions that caused the failure. He also said others were reporting failures with Cheyenne II.

Nancy Howell · Jul 26, 2012

Can you give me any idea of when the article was published?

Txsprigger · Jul 26, 2012

You have to have luck and catch the rains just right. We don't have irrigation here in Central Texas either. Have had some failures in the past when we don't get timely rains, just like anything else involved in agriculture, its a crap shoot.

Anonymous-0 · Jul 27, 2012

I am just a little south of you in Palestine, Texas. Planted 20 acres of Cheyenne II last year.
got about 20 plants, that died. Tough summer.
RichS

OT- Tifton 85 bermuda

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