For Release August 1, 2004

Don't Harvest Bromegrass Now

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

Most bromegrass producers harvested their brome hay in late May or early June. For the first time in several years we had a decent cutting. Then, totally beyond expectations, it just kept raining and the bromegrass re-grew. Which is exactly what it is supposed to do. So now, with a nice lush bunch of bromegrass out there, many producers are asking if they can cut the bromegrass a second time.

NO! Since harvest time, the bromegrass, in addition to re-growing leaves, has been very busy storing food in the roots and redeveloping some of the root system and tillers that it lost the last four years when it was so drought stressed. If you were to go ahead and harvest it a second time now, the minute you cut it, it would go ahead and start trying to regrow. In so doing it would first have to reach down into the food reserves and use those up as it produces new leaf blades. The grass would be making a withdrawal from the winter and early spring food savings account.

If we knew that it was going to keep raining and not get too hot, then the grass would probably have time to regrow the leaves and restore all the lost carbohydrate reserves. But we don't know what the weather is going to do. It could start to regrow, then become hot and dry and shut this process down for all of August. Then it might start growing again in September, but before it could restore the root reserves it would shut down for winter. And there you go into winter with low root reserves. Then you're left wondering why the brome didn't do very well in the spring of 2005.

There is an option however. By the middle of October, the bromegrass will pretty well be shut down for winter. Barring an early hard freeze, the grass will still be fairly lush and very high quality. At that time you could go ahead and cut it, or start grazing it, and utilize this high quality forage without damaging the stand for next year.

Are there any drawbacks to an October harvest date, whether by machine or livestock? There are only two possible negatives. First of all you will need to increase your fertilization rate. Secondly, with an October harvest date, there would be very little regrowth. If we were to have a snowy winter, then the field would not hold as much snow and you would miss that addition to the soil moisture next spring.

Let's get back to the fertilization issue. If you take a second cutting in October, instead of your normal fertilization you would need to increase it by 20 to 30 pounds of nitrogen and an extra 10 pounds of phosphorus. Which means that a blanket recommendation, in the absence of a soil test, would now be 140 pounds of nitrogen, 30 pounds of phosphorus and 10 pounds of sulfur. The other bit of fertilizer management we need to consider is the timing of the fertilization. Long term studies at Manhattan show the best plant response in bromegrass from fertilizing in November and December.

The bromegrass has really suffered from the heat and drought over the last four years. Stands have thinned out and production has been lost. We have a great opportunity right now to repair some of that damage. But if we try to harvest the bromegrass now, we will negate that opportunity. Be patient and wait until fall to try to get that second cutting of brome.

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