Search

This article provides management guidelines to benefit from ryegrass while encouraging bermudagrass recovery. While the focus is on ryegrass in bermudagrass, the same principles apply to other cool-season annuals in other warm-season perennial grasses.

Preventive and corrective maintenance for tractors and other equipment is a routine on the farm. From a soil and crops perspective, let's look at some maintenance that needs to be performed on your operation.

A recent analysis of our cooperators' soil test data from 1999 to 2003 highlights the necessity of collecting soil samples in order to do a good job of fertilizing and liming.

This fact sheet talks about acidity's causes and corrections, the amount of lime needed to raise the pH, and the length of time liming takes to work.

We can't control the amount or timing of rain. But, by managing the land, we can capture as much as possible to grow grass and recharge ground water when it does rain.

Organic matter serves as a reservoir of nutrients and water in the soil, aids in reducing compaction, and increases water infiltration. Yet, it's often ignored and neglected.

Fertilizer, swathing, raking, baling and labor expenses can push the cost of haying bermudagrass up to $30/ton or more. With that kind of investment, it's important to implement proper management to assure a positive return.

Soil testing pays, and I am certain you've heard this statement from one of Noble's soil and crops specialists before. We already have begun seeing soil test results with high residual nitrogen. These levels have been high enough at times to cause us to not recommend nitrogen fertilization for fall/winter pasture forage production.

There has been increased interest in using poultry litter as fertilizer since fertilizer prices have skyrocketed. Poultry litter has long been used near the point of production, but high transportation costs for its low analysis has limited its use to within about 50 miles of poultry houses.

As we approach the end of 2011, many soil sample results have considerably higher than average amounts of nitrates, especially in wheat and winter pasture fields.