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What is your preferred tool to plant alfalfa with,
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Russ In Idaho
Posted 9/7/2013 08:34 (#3313161 - in reply to #3312710)
Subject: RE: Russ?


Sorry Ben, didn't come to this site till this morning. I usually plant a crop of oats for hay around 120 lbs. per acre. Just before cutting I have them spray it with roundup to kill get all Canadian thistles, and other stuff. Then I just bale it, then just blow seed on hard ground in stubble, I don't work the ground at all. there will be some cracks in the ground, but it hasn't seemed to bother at all. Seen the seed germinate in those cracks. I use 6" siphon tubes to flood with, will get a little washing at the head ditch because of the bigger tubes. But a year later can work the dirt back up to fill in the little washes. The only down fall of doing it this way is there might be a little chaff from raking and baling left in windrow. Seems to slow growth of alfalfa a little, some times I've had to thicken it up, most generally I don't ever have to touch it again.

Done it both ways with drill or air truck. The problem I always had with a drill was seeing where I was at, as I just basically let seed drop on the ground with disc's just barely marking the ground. I never had a foam marker or GPS so it was hard to see where I was at sometimes. When I first started blowing the seed on I could rent a air cart for $2.50 acre 50' booms with foam marker, they brought it full of seed for me. It was a sweet deal, took no time to plant a 40 acre piece.

Back when I started using the air carts I had a CIH 5100 drill, that thing leaked more seed out of the seeder than it drilled from day one it was new. I've got a JD end wheel drill now which is 100% better other than the time it takes to drill. First time I used the JD to plant alfalfa was this last spring, I thickened up a new stand I had co-op put in last fall. I worked that stubble ground up because it was in barley and the chaff was too thick, I should have worked the ground one more pass as the volunteer grain killed some of it out.

I tried to plant some RR alfalfa seed this spring with a nurse crop of oats, I drill oats and got them up. Just before irrigating I had co-op lined up to blow seed on, well got a rain about the only rain all summer hit right then. They made some deep wheel tracks in soft ground, it sure made it tough to water, had to do some serious shoveling. The only reason I did it that way was because we were going to be short on water so I felt it was my only time to get new seeding in. Looking back I wish I would have just sprayed oats to kill and took my chances on blowing seed on later and only watering it two times instead of four that it got. I only had canal water to water this place, couldn't run my well on it. I had blown seed on a cover crop before, but the ground was firmed up after planting the cover crop so truck didn't leave much for a track. But this time with the rain that just hit it caused a lot of grief flooding it. If it would have been under sprinklers it would have been just right. Just wasn't my luck that day.
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