Air March 12, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. The weather is warming up and spring is just around the corner. Wheat is breaking dormancy and is really going to start growing so if you haven’t top dressed or treated for weeds yet, you’d better get with it!

I want to talk a little bit about bromegrass this morning. Bromegrass is one of those secondary hay crops that is really a lot more important than how it is often treated. We use brome in waterways and we use brome in scattered hay fields around the farm. We often don’t think much about our brome grass until it doesn’t produce very well. I’ve noticed a couple of things about bromegrass management over the years. We don’t adequately fertilize bromegrass, we tend to cut it for hay too late and then we try to hay it and graze it in the same year or we try to get two cuttings of hay off of it. So then we wonder why it isn’t doing well. One thing that people ask every year is if bromegrass can be burned off. Yes it can. We normally will do that in February or early March so there is still time to get out there and burn it. We normally burn brome to get rid of excess thatch and to control cedars and other brush. You want to burn it just before it starts to put on spring growth. Spring growth is getting ready to really go, especially with warmer weather. If you didn’t fertilize brome last fall, there is still time to fertilize, but hurry! IF your bromegrass has not been producing well, you may want to do a full profile soil test so we can get a good feel for the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur you may be needing. I can make a blanket recommendation of 100 pounds of nitrogen 50 pounds of phosphorus and 20 pounds of sulfur, but I’d rather be working off of a good full profile soil test. The problem could just be the weather. Bromegrass can be hayed once or seasonally grazed, but it can’t be both hayed and grazed or hayed twice. As for proper timing, most producers wait until it starts to bloom to cut. But by the time they see that it is blooming and then they get it actually cut, we can easily be 10 days best prime time. I’d prefer to see folks heading out to swath brome at the early head stage. Don’t wait for bloom, once you see quite a few heads popping, start cutting. Brome can be a good hay crop, but you have to manage for it, it doesn’t just happen!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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