[Ryson1]

Had a neighbour ask me to seed some barley for him, about 50 acres. He wants to underseed it to alphalpha, and another field about the same size to timothy and brome. I use a flexicoil 5000 double shoot, no grass seed kit. He suggested mixing the grass seed in while loading the fertilizer and putting it down that way. I have done that in the past with fescue and it worked ok. Biggest question I have with this is due to the row spacing, is the alphalpha or timothy and brome mix going to be in rows? Or due to the low weight of the seeds compared to the fertilizer, would these seeds tend to blow around in the trench made by the opener and become a little more even? Creeping red fescue would tend to maybe fill itself in a little better? Secondly would these seeds tend to settle out with the movement of the cart and be less evenly mixed? Shouldn't pose much trouble as far as plugging - he will be putting down about 100 lb of fertilizer with it which should keep everything flowing. I'm sure there are a few of you who have tried this - did it work well? I'm not much of a hay farmer myself!

 

[hog987]

I have done it by mixing seed with fertilizer but the fertilizer was broad cast onto the land. Than seeded than harrowed. Other wise mixed the hay seed with the grain and plant shallow.

 

[caroncrest]

We have had very good results with our air drill seeding alfalfa (Morris maxim) by putting fert down the centre and seed out the wings (paired row openers) as long as the fertilizer opener is the only part under ground: set the depth so the paired seed rows are right at ground level and doing more broadcasting than seeding. Our drill is on 10" centres, so you end up with nice uniform pattern, may be a little stripey on 12" centres? This was for straight alfalfa on stubble

When we have done a cover crop, we usually seed the barley first and put fert on for alfalfa as well, then broadcast and harrow in the alfalfa in a separate pass or two, depending on what equipment we can rent

Should also add that my first paragraph almost always gets followed by the harrow/packer bar for a little incorporation on the surface applied alfalfa

 

[skgrain]

Seeding the afalfa is easy. If you have a third tank just blow it down your seed run with barey. Set depth according to alfalfa so your barley will be a bit shallow maybe.(compromise of doing it in one pass) Yes it will be in rows but thats fine.

Grass seed is tricky. Mix it with fertilizer or your barley. Load small amounts in your drill(less chance of settling out) Everything is an estimate. You will have to go shallow so you are more or less broadcasting stuff. It will also be in rows which is fine too.

With the grass I would prefer to drill low rate of barley with fert. Then come with harrows and valmar and broadcast a mix of barley and grass.

I bet you wont offer to custom seed grass once you are done this job

 

[tjdno1]

It will seed fine mixed with fertilizer but dont go deep like you would normally go with the fertilizer. Have had the fertilizer company spread it with the fertilizer and then rolled it in with a mulcher.