View Full Version : What kind of hay is 'jiggs'?
roujesky
02-06-2005, 01:28 AM
Just wondering....
Try here (http://southwestfarmpress.com/mag/farming_one_mans_headache/) for a description.
icandoanything
02-18-2005, 12:09 PM
Well, I'll tell ya, I was going to sprig a five acre patch with coastal that my MIL has but have decided to plant jiggs after reading the article from the website Bird provided. I need a pretty aggressive bermuda for her patch since she insists on keeping her 5 cows on that and a 2 acre patch she has access to. I was going to sprig it but I would have to keep the cows off it for awhile. Buying hay for them while it gets started is expensive. Sooo, I'll just wait till June or so for the jigg tops to get going and Jiggy jigg jig it.
Dick
Bird, Does Jiggs do well when not irrigated and fertilized. I was excited about "World Feeder" till I found out that it was only average in performance untill you really hit it hard with water annd fertilizer to get the "outstanding performance." It apparently has a higher point where diminishing returns set in.
If Jiggs does really well as compared to other Bermudas on just our typical unreliable rain and litle or no fertilizer then I am definitely interested.
/forums/images/icons/smile.gif Pat /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
Pat, I don't know anything about "jiggs"; never even heard of it until this thread and found a Google search turned up quite a number of sites. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif Sorry if my post made it sound like I knew something. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif
icandoanything
02-21-2005, 01:14 PM
Pat, from what I know about Jiggs is that it's a form of Bermuda. Larger stems and heartier than regular bermuda. VERY AGGRESIVE. If you could water it, better, but it will do ok with the rain. Will do better if fertilized. I'm going to fertilize my 25 acre patch in March. Normally, they don't Jigg the grass until June or so becauseThats how they get the jiggs, they actually scrape, mow to get the jigg tops. Alot of guys are going to it in my area of Tx. Hope this helps.
Dick
Maybe these sites will help if you haven't already gone to it.
http://southwestfarmpress.com/mag/farming_one_mans_headache/
http://tcebookstore.org/tmppdfs/4725701-E179.pdf
Sorry Bird, I'll look elsewhere. I guess I'm stil gunshy after my experience with "WORLD FEEDER." Great stuff if you have the water and fertilizer and a need to maximize production from a limited area.
/forums/images/icons/smile.gif Pat /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
When you say "jig" the grass, what do you mean? I know about sprigging bermuda grass but never heard about jigging it. Same thing????
/forums/images/icons/smile.gif Pat /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
icandoanything
02-22-2005, 10:40 AM
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
The Jiggs is clipped and baled in the morning and spread with a bale chopper as soon as possible the same day on well-watered, disked ground.
"You need to have pieces with about five or six nodes to make sure you get good rooting," White said. "Each node represents a root source."
The ground is cultipacked after the tops are scattered, and that's the end of the farming part.
[/ QUOTE ]
Pat, I hope this helps. Down here in the summer time of my part of Tx, we don't get that much rain, except last year, and I've never heard of anyone irrigating thier fields. Too expensive anyway. Jiggs do well in the summers just on rain alone if thats what your thinking about.
Here's some telephone numbers I got off a buisness card at my local vet clinic:
Ken Dernehl
Farm: 830-788-7195
Mobile: 713-376-8754
Waelder, Tx
This guy might be able to answer any questions you might have.
Dick
Pat tell me about your experience with world feeder? I made the mistake of contacting them once and they've never let up trying to get us to try it. I have always been gunshy of it and it seems like you were shot by it. /forums/images/icons/shocked.gif
Dick, Thanks for the info. That is a pretty standard propagation technique, no surprises. I was just unfamiliar withthe term "jig" or jigging. One of those regional things probably. Around here folks talk abouit sprigging.
Thanks again,
/forums/images/icons/smile.gif Pat
cowboydoc, I was very fortunate to do my research vicariously and not as a personal experiment in the field. They had me interested but not hooked. I checked out independent sources of info as best I could: extension agent etc. The concensus of opinion was that the world feeder variety of bermuda would perform like crazy if and only if it got plenty of water and fertilizer. With our typical rainfall and without higher than typical fertilization rates, the performance was not noticibly different from other locally favored bermudas.
Where it SHINES is this: We are all faminiar with the effect known as diminishing returns (doc excuse the lecture but other readers may need some more background) if you give the grass a little more water and a little more fertilizer you get more tons per acre of grass. If you continue to add more fertilizer and water you continue to get more tons of grass per acre until finally you reach a point where the increase in grass per acre doesn't go up as much per ton of fertilizer as it did at lower application rates. At this point additional units of input result in less of an increase in units of output. In fact, if you add enough fertilizer, you will begin to ovrfertlize and actually reduce the tons of grass per acre. You will have exceeded the point of diminishing returns. Now to WORLD FEEDER...
World feeder can handle higher fertilizer application rates. Its point of diminishing returns is at a higher rate of application. Therefore a given acreage is capable of more tons per acre on world feeder than many other bermudas B U T it is at a high cost of fertilizer and requires prodigious quantities of water to get these amazing yields. For many folks there is an option to have more acres in bermuda and a cost savings in reduced rates of fertilization so they opt to NOT choose World Feeder.
Since in my area the best advice (Extension agent has seen it tried and has followed test results of experiments) and examples (some tried it) I have opted to not go with World Feeder. It may be right for some folks but with the price of fertilizer predicted in the future I'm not sure if there would be a return on investment. For me it would be like buying a 200 MPH Maserati and not wanting to pay the price of av-gas to fuel it and having no place to drive it over 70MPH. Great potential but likely to remain unrealized.
Your mileage may vary,
/forums/images/icons/smile.gif Pat /forums/images/icons/smile.gif