I'd love to hear some responses on this subject. I tried to seed this past spring but we are on a hill so it all washed away. I just don't have the right equipment to do it well. I was thinking about seeding in February for a frost seeding, but I agree with you on the cost. After a while you wonder if it's worth it. A brown pasture just isn't picturesque....

 

i know right lol. It seems as if horses still eat the brown grass though from what i have seen from others pastures. I heard a guy say he plants in january as he thinks the rye likes that better so i might actually try that next yr. I did plant in mid september, as suggested by the feed store guy and some others as the time to plant it.

 

No help, sorry, but we put down some manure compost that has composted for over a year in a box, and we seeded it, and in 5 days we could see little clover sprouts, and by 8 days, it was like cenimeter high, and by 10 days we could see the regular grass sprouting and by 18 days everything was about 4 inches tall.. Talk about fast growing!

 

you know , now that you have said that, I have 2 areas that i was throwing manure at and there is green grass about 12 inches high in both piles. I was thinking it would eventually die. Are you telling me that this grass will grow all winter?

if so, what should I do, should i spread it in the pasture some or what?

could you take that compost out of the box and say spread seed over it then see another area much larger than the compost and it spread to the other areas of the non-manure stuff also and grow thru winter?

 

I have manure! Does that really help the situation!

 

i wana see what the poster recommends. I dont know if i will have enuff to help the acre that I have though but it might be enuff to help the stuff start spreading. It might help if i take that manure and spread it over the rye that's came up about 3 inches

 

It seems like you'd have to spread it pretty thin. Although I guess I'm thinking of the spots out in the field with old manure and beautiful grass growing that the horses don't touch. That manure isn't seasoned enough and that's why the horses don't eat it? I'd be a bad horse because it looks good to me.

 

as greedy as horses are, you would think it wouldnt matte to them lol.

my horses nickname is " greedy man"

 

I cant see why you are calling it expensive, You must be buying the wrong or at the wrong place. Go to a feed store and get a 50lb bag of rye seed. It's only about $29 for 50lbs. Way more than enough for your fields. You may try a soil sample alot of feed stores sell the mail in kits. You may need some lime.
Generally in my pastures. One fall I spread rye grass, then skip a year and in the spring spread a drought resitance K31. Usually I will spray some weedkiller before seeding. I in no way have a manicured pasture. Horses dont need perfect grass.

 

I cant see why you are calling it expensive, You must be buying the wrong or at the wrong place. Go to a feed store and get a 50lb bag of rye seed. It's only about $29 for 50lbs. Way more than enough for your fields. You may try a soil sample alot of feed stores sell the mail in kits. You may need some lime.
Generally in my pastures. One fall I spread rye grass, then skip a year and in the spring spread a drought resitance K31. Usually I will spray some weedkiller before seeding. I in no way have a manicured pasture. Horses dont need perfect grass.

yes i did say i paid 29 bucks for a 50 lb bag. I had the broadcast seeder set on about 4 and it seemed it did most of that acre. I very well might need to do a soil sample or just put down lime next time. How much in advance do i need to put down the lime before planting the rye in mid september?

 

I have no idea, where do you live ? Is the nyg mean something to do with New york? I think I see your problem grass doesnt root very well in ice, You'd have to plant one of the two days in july the ground isnt covered with snow.

 

First -- Are you talking Rye Grass or Rye? They are totally different. It takes about 20# of Rye Grass to seed an acre. It is tiny -- almost thread-like in the fall and provides great grazing in March through June in the south and mid-south.

Rye is a grain -- just like wheat. It takes 100# per acre to seed it and it should be drilled and not broadcast. The birds eat most of it when it is broadcast. You can mix it with manure and spread it that way, but it takes several tons of manure and bedding for an acre of ground. It is by far best to drill it with a no-till or pasture drill. They are at rental places in many areas.

Never plow or disk up ground (which makes the best seed-bed by far) if the ground is not nearly level. A good rain will wash off all of your topsoil and you will not be able to grow decent weeds after that.

You can sow oats for forage in the early spring. That is your best bet this late in the year unless you are in the deep south. If you broadcast them in the spring just before a predicted rain, you will get a good germination. Keep the horses off of it until it has a big enough root system that it won't be pulled up by the horses.

We over-seeded Rye grass years ago. It is an annual and reseeds itself every year. We have just been through the worst drought in history in this area. I do not know if any of it survived to reseed itself. I guess we will find out next spring.

If you plant rye or wheat, you have to bale it or get the horses off if it before it heads out and the seed matures in the spring. I have run literally hundreds of horses on winter wheat and rye and love it. I have only kept IR horses and obese horses off of it.

 

First -- Are you talking Rye Grass or Rye? They are totally different. It takes about 20# of Rye Grass to seed an acre. It is tiny -- almost thread-like in the fall and provides great grazing in March through June in the south and mid-south.

Rye is a grain -- just like wheat. It takes 100# per acre to seed it and it should be drilled and not broadcast. The birds eat most of it when it is broadcast. You can mix it with manure and spread it that way, but it takes several tons of manure and bedding for an acre of ground. It is by far best to drill it with a no-till or pasture drill. They are at rental places in many areas.

Never plow or disk up ground (which makes the best seed-bed by far) if the ground is not nearly level. A good rain will wash off all of your topsoil and you will not be able to grow decent weeds after that.

You can sow oats for forage in the early spring. That is your best bet this late in the year unless you are in the deep south. If you broadcast them in the spring just before a predicted rain, you will get a good germination. Keep the horses off of it until it has a big enough root system that it won't be pulled up by the horses.

We over-seeded Rye grass years ago. It is an annual and reseeds itself every year. We have just been through the worst drought in history in this area. I do not know if any of it survived to reseed itself. I guess we will find out next spring.

If you plant rye or wheat, you have to bale it or get the horses off if it before it heads out and the seed matures in the spring. I have run literally hundreds of horses on winter wheat and rye and love it. I have only kept IR horses and obese horses off of it.

I live in SC, sorry for the confusion. Lower state sc that is.

talking about annual rye and i got confused as to the numbers you referred to as 20, and 100, #, does that represent bags? The guy at the feed store who has owned that place for yrs and yrs, old man, i could of swore he said one 50 lb bag would do an acre

 

I live in Oklahoma, and in early October, the weatherman finally told us we could expect a little rain. We've been clearing trees and brush out of our pasture - it was completely overgrown - almost no grass at all on our 15 acres. Son in law bought a bag of a mix if annual rye grass and hard red winter wheat. He only paid about $15 for it. As an experiment, he broadcast seeded it over some bare ground. In a few days, it started turning green, but it was awfully thin.

In late October, we finally started getting some more serious rains. Son in law bought a 50# bag of straight ryegrass seed, and broadcast it over about a two acre section. It's about 6 - 8 inches tall, now, and we've turned the horses in on it for a couple of hours now and again. Will need to turn them in again pretty soon. We've had a freeze, but I guess it hasn't been hard enough to hurt the grass, but I don't want it to go to waste.

Funny thing - when we first turned the horses out on the new grass, they munched on it for a few minutes, then took off to the back side of the property. We couldn't figure out what was back there, as it was mostly still trees (work in progress) and bare ground. We walked back there and the bare ground isn't exactly bare anymore.

When DH and I first moved to that property in 1984, the pasture was lovely and clear - and full of bermuda grass. After DH had his stroke, we let the pasture pretty much go to wrack and ruin. Now that we have a chunk of it cleared out...there are patches of bermuda grass showing up again! We have no idea how that came to be, but it's definitely there. There was a large-ish patch of it growing by the pond, where there were no trees, but there is some coming up 25 - 30 yards away from there - and more coming up along the back fence - nearly 1/4 mile from the pond! All we can think of is that there must have been a few rhizomes here and there that were dormant, but not quite dead. Clearing out the trees let the sun in, and in spite of our awful drought, the bermuda grass began to grow again.

Go figure...

 

# is the symbol for pounds,
50 lbs of rye grass seed is more than enough for an acre and can be broadcast. Might be a little late in the year though.

 

the '#' sign equals 'pound'. It is a standard symbol like ' equals foot or " equals inches or $ equals dollars.

You still did not say if you are talking about rye or rye grass. Both are annuals. Both are usually planted in the fall as is winter wheat and winter oats. Frost does not kill them. They just go dormant during very cold weather and break dormancy in the early spring. They grow and mature and go to seed then.

'Rye' is grain and 'rye grass' is a grass. Horses can eat the heads of rye grass but not rye.

The standard amount of rye grass people usually plant in the fall is 20 # (pounds) per acre. Rye or wheat is usually planted at the rate of 50 to 100# (pounds) per acre with the higher amount used for a heavy stand or when broadcast instead of drilled.

If you don't know which is which -- was the seed tiny like grass seed (would blow out of your hand if you blew on it) or was it a large kernel like a kernel of wheat or oats?

 

it was definitely tiny like grass seeds, 50 lb bag for $29. Maybe the existing grass being around 4-6 inches didnt allow all of the seed to reach the ground in most areas of my pasture. I might mow it down a little bit as it is about 8 to 10 inches now maybe. Mowing it down might actually help the grass that still wants to grow, grow.

below is an image of how it was after I mowed it before the grass started growing spring of this year. It will probably look like this after I mow it.

 

Watch out for those stumps when you mow! Son in law left some of the stumps in our pasture a bit too high. Our brush hog is really old, and doesn't have a stump jumper. Mowing that day was not a fun experience - nor was it cheap. Good thing DH had another old brush hog to use for parts!

You may be right about the seed not reaching the ground right now. In addition, it may not be getting enough sun. Where we seeded it was bare ground. Wish I had a picture of it now - from some angles it's really lush...but when you walk up in it, you can see it's thin in some areas and WAY to thick in others - we had a gullywasher come down right after we spread that last batch of seed. I guess we'll just have to keep after it!

 

We spread it in an area where there is extremly sparce grass, Casey was just tearing it up with her hooves when she walked. We don't have a spreader, we took our tractor and used the bucket to dump it out and a rake to spread it about 3 inches deep and then we seeded it. I don't think it will grow in winter, grass typically needs weather around 60 degrees to grow, and it can grow when it is 50 (oh yeah, in Fahrenheit) but it grows very slowly. If you throw out fresh-ish manure sparely on the pasture, it may help, but big piles will just kill the grass. I haven't tried adding all the way composted manure on good grass, but my guess would be it would bury the grass under it. I would only put fully composted manure on a field, when it is dirt consistency. Hope I answered your question!