Hay

[Phred]

Guys,

Any one have a good hay crop this year?

I bet the dry weather has really hurt alot of folks.

Phred

[Buckeye]

My father-in-law had a great crop of timothy this year. Although we are technically very dry in my area, the pop-up thunderstorms just seem to hit his farm this year. 5-6 miles away and most people did not have it as good.

[Phred]

Jim,

I am glad to hear it was a good year.

I wish I had bailed mine. We had enough water in this area and I think other areas are hard hit so the price this year is probably pretty good.

Fred

This has been my best year ever. I will be putting up my fifth cutting today and will get five cuttings on my other fields as well. Couldn't have asked for a better year around here.

[Phred]

doc,

Is that mostly alfalfa?

I started to put mine up this year but I have only had the place about two years and its still awful weedy. Better than before but I did not think it was quite ready this year. Turns out we have had above average rain and I could have had a lot of round bales! [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]
Most of my fields are a fescue and sericea lespedeza mix.
This seems to work pretty well since the fescue does very well in the spring and fall and the lespedeza loves the hot dry summer. Also this should reduce the amount nitrogen needed.
Not great horse feed by large round bales of this stuff should be good for cattle.

Fred

[Hayseed]

Phred,

Seems I read somewhere that some types of lespadeza will attract turkeys, quail and doves. If I remember right it will make a bush with pods with one seed per pod if you let it grow. Am I remembering correctly? Does the type of lespadeza that you grow attract game birds? Do you have turkeys in your part of Arkansas?

[Phred]

Hayseed,

Here is a photo:
http://www.psu.missouri.edu/fishel/s..._lespedeza.htm

Many people consider this a noxious weed and spend lots of time and money trying to kill it. However, I have found that cows will eat it and since my soil is pretty low quality in places it is usefull since it does not mind all the rocks and low fertility. If nothing else it keeps errosion to a minimum. I will slowly phase it out through cutting and competition from white clover and the fescue.

As far as the turkeys go I have not seen or heard any. More white tail than I can count but no turkeys. We do have lots of road runners thought,


Kind of supprising since the ozarks remind me a lot of the mountians of south western Virginia where I use to live. And then you have these things that are suppose to live in the desert. Go figure. I bieleve we are the far eastern extent of their range.

Fred

[Hayseed]

Lespedeza looks like a weed to me!

It's funny you should mention roadrunners. I posted a queston about roadrunners in the TBN forums a while back. I asked who had seen them outside of desert areas and got a few responses back from northeast Tx. and Okla. I saw one a couple of months ago on a highway in far north central La. and it made me curious as to how far they ranged outside the desert southwest. That was the third time I had seen one in my life, the other two times being when I was a kid in south Ark. I thought it was unusual to see them there and now you say they are in the Ozarks, too! Wow! I had no idea...

[Phred]

Yep. Looks like a weed and most people try to kill it.
When I first bought the place I also planned to kill it off, but then I found that if you don't let it get to tall the cows will eat it. In fact some folks appear to like a fescue lespedeza mix. The annual lespedeza is more common.
Turns out its hard to kill; 2-4D won't do the trick. Remedy and Ally will but you may need a second morgagte to pay for the stuff. Hundereds of dollars for 16 oz!!! now granted that will cover 40-50 acres but thats still pretty steep. I would probably spill the bottle trying to poor it into the sprayer tank. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

My plan is to keep cutting it to discourage its growth. This has been shown to work since it needs to store energy in its tape root and it does this in late summer. So I cut it often in summer. However, in the mean time it provides a cover crop and some minium nitrogen fixation for the white clover and fescue that I am trying to encourage.

I also had no idea until I moved out here about the road runners. In fact I thought a road runner was something that willie use to chase and went beep beep. This link has some good info and shows that I am on the far eastern edge of its range.
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i3850id.html
Note that this maps claims the density in my area is very low.
Wrong. On the ~eight mile dirt road into my place I see one to two of these things each day. And their often several miles apart. A couple of months ago two of them were hanging out in some bushes by my gate.

Fred

[Hayseed]

Well, they say that constant mowing is the best way to eliminate weeds and other undesireable growth so that may be the most economical approach for you to take w/ the lespedeza.

That's some high dollar weed killers you are talking about. I would probably have a steadier hand trying to pour nitroglycerin than I would that stuff! [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

I looked at the USGS map on the link you gave and I agree that it is not very accurate. The roadrunner sightings I have made were all in the white area of south Ark. and north La. Maybe we oughta write them and have them include us when they do their next count!