Late winter considerations<\/a>.” The file was a handout from a meeting in the \u201cGrazing for Profit\u201d conference in TN. It was prepared by Dr. Jim Green, retired Extension Forage Specialist from NC State Univ.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Should I plant ryegrass to try to get some grass?<\/strong>\u00a0It is very unlikely to be economical. If one counts what they have in it and considers they are probably won\u2019t even get 1 ton\/acre out of it (likely to get less than 0.5 tons\/acre). More details in the\u00a0above article from Jim Green.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Should I fertilize bermudagrass now? <\/strong>It is still VERY early. Bermudagrass\u2019s response to N (Nitrogen)\u00a0right now is likely to be less than 10-15 lbs of DM\/acre per lb of N applied, which is below or barely breakeven from an economics perspective. \u00a0Plus, too much N now could induce more rapid dormancy break and make the plant less hardy if we get a late freeze. Does anybody remember the 2007 Easter freeze? We lost significant acreage of bermudagrass stands due to putting out N too early and getting 2-3 nights in mid-April below 20 F. This weather then was very similar to this year. It is just weird enough to give us that sort of crazy jolt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Should I plant pearl millet now?<\/strong> No. Soil temps at a 2\u201d depth have to be above 65 F and stay above 65 F. Yes, soil temps hit 65 F at 2\u201d in some areas this week. BUT, about 6 weeks ago in January they hit that same threshold in Tifton, too! See the attached photo. \u00a0It was crazy risky to plant pearl millet then and it is risky to plant it now. Keep in mind, pearl millet seeds monitor the weather AND the calendar (or, as they know it, daylength). Don\u2019t plant before there are 12 hrs and 20 minutes of day length (Mar. 25). April 1st is a good rule of thumb for earliest plantings. By the way, this applies to sorghum x sudan and sudangrass, too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
What can I do\u00a0now?<\/strong> Scout and spray for weeds or stick a soil probe in the ground. After the drought and this wacky winter weather, weeds are gonna eat our lunch this spring if we aren\u2019t careful. A LOT of hay was imported this winter. I\u2019m not saying that hay was completely full of weed seeds, but one can only imagine the problems that were brought in via those bales. Plus, good soil fertility this spring will be crucial to getting the pastures and hayfields off to a good competitive start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late winter considerations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,72,59],"tags":[88,22,62,89,66,87],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cattle","category-fertilizer","category-forages","tag-bermuda","tag-cattle","tag-forage","tag-grass","tag-hay","tag-pastures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/plowpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}