[Jacob-list] Suggestions for top seeding meadows

[Neal and Louise Grose]

Ryegrass is a good fall seeded winter annual, but probably won't do us much 
good this far south in for the summer. My Granny would role over in her 
grave, but improved crab-grass varieties are available and sheep love the 
stuff.

Neal
North Carolina

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shannon Phifer" <kenleighacres at yahoo.com>
To: <jacob-list at jacobsheep.com>
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Jacob-list] Suggestions for top seeding meadows



Hi Sue - We have had great success top seeding with annual rye grass. We 
live in the grass seed capital of the world and have access to fairly 
inexpensive rye grass seed. Annual rye grass is very aggresive and we are 
using it to choke out some of the less palatable grasses/weeds that we have 
in our pastures. By top seeding you will lose some of the seed to the wind, 
birds, etc. but it is obviously much cheaper than drilling the seed. You 
just need to use a seed that is aggressive enough to take hold. Several of 
the grass seed farmers in the area like to say that annual rye grass will 
grow on a New York sidewalk in the middle of winter :)

Shannon Phifer
Kenleigh Acres Farm
www.kenleigh-acres.com
That'll Do Photography
www.thatlldo.photoreflect.com




Message: 2
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 12:14:36 -0500
From: "Susan J Martin" <stcroft at ptd.net>
Subject: [Jacob-list] Suggestions for top seeding meadows
To: "Sheep E-mail List" <jacob-list at jacobsheep.com>
Message-ID: <22DE625F4B994C4FA368877E703B758A at Ultra>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

We have several meadows for our sheep - probably totaling not over 6 acres. 
We have bare spots and need to top seed and we thought we would just take 
advantage of the freeze/thaw situation here in southeast PA and scatter the 
seed in early Spring - like soon (well, after this current blizzard is 
over!) Then I spoke with the seed distributor who told me that grass seed 
really doesn't do well in this application, that it is too light, will just 
blow away and won't germinate - that we should drill it in. However, we are 
hobby shepherds - we have a 20 horse Kubota tractor, no drill, no 
cultipacker, etc. So, can anyone on the list give me suggestions of how we 
can top seed - please don't suggest a landscaper to do the job because the 
cost would be prohibitive - it would be more economical to just let the bare 
spots and buy hay!!

Thanks......you guys always are so helpful.

Sue Martin
Stonecroft

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