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At the Beef Cow Symposium this winter some research was presented that showed you can completely wipe out this year's seed production by hitting it with 2,4-D, Banvel or Tordon. It had to be at the right growth stage but the spray would destroy the viability of the seed. Since cheat seed has a pretty short lifespan in the soil it wouldn't take much time before you had cleaned it up. There is the obvious problem with this approach in that you are going to wipe out pretty much all of the broadleaf plants in your range, but if you have cheat causing enough problems that you need to take this drastic of a measure there probably isn't much in the way of forbes left in the stand.

You can control it to a certain degree with proper timed grazing but I haven't ever seen grazing wipe it out, it is just a control measure. In all likelihood anyone that has cheat now will have it 50 years from now it is just a matter of holding it down to a manageable level. It can be useful early in the spring.
 
gcreekrch said:
....get rid of cheatgrass without spraying?


Can you get rid of it with spraying?
Click to expand...

other than spraying, tillage is the only way i know of, and i'm sure that won't get it all. but if the cheat is in a pasture, then spraying is probably the only option.
 
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
 
gcreekrch said:
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your cheatgrass but I know the guys around here are trying to figure out how to get rid of the problematic meadow foxtail. Careful what you wish for :D
 
gcreekrch said:
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
Click to expand...

if it is not covering a large area yet, i'd spray it before it spreads out of control. there are some pastures around here that it has almost completely taken over.
 
Grassfarmer said:
gcreekrch said:
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your cheatgrass but I know the guys around here are trying to figure out how to get rid of the problematic meadow foxtail. Careful what you wish for :D
Click to expand...
You might have Downy Brome GF, I think they are the same thing :???: Either way I haven't any experience with wet spots.
 
Grassfarmer said:
gcreekrch said:
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your cheatgrass but I know the guys around here are trying to figure out how to get rid of the problematic meadow foxtail. Careful what you wish for :D
Click to expand...

Meadow Foxtail is a "weed" that grows well here without fertilizer or any special care. You can winter feed on it and trash it in the spring and it keeps coming back better. We have some ground that will produce over three ton to the acre with no input but flood irrigation. If cut at the right time we have had it test at 12.4% protein and 68% TDN. The cows like it.
There is a good regrowth for fall pasture.

Why would I not encourage a weed like that at over 4000 ft elevation?
 
gcreekrch said:
Grassfarmer said:
gcreekrch said:
It's actually in a wet corner of the field we grow our oats and peas in. We normally can't get it farmed well enough to break up the sod well. The cheat seems come back faster than the oats can sprout.
I'm wondering if this Meadow Foxtail would choke it out as it is also an aggressive grass.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your cheatgrass but I know the guys around here are trying to figure out how to get rid of the problematic meadow foxtail. Careful what you wish for :D
Click to expand...

Meadow Foxtail is a "weed" that grows well here without fertilizer or any special care. You can winter feed on it and trash it in the spring and it keeps coming back better. We have some ground that will produce over three ton to the acre with no input but flood irrigation. If cut at the right time we have had it test at 12.4% protein and 68% TDN. The cows like it.
There is a good regrowth for fall pasture.

Why would I not encourage a weed like that at over 4000 ft elevation?
Click to expand...

On our place meadow foxtail can be a bit of a curse. It spreads like wildfire and pushes out brome and timothy. I wouldn't mind, but it matures at a different rate and gets coarse before alfalfa and other hay is ripe. If it would stay in the low areas like we intended all would be well, but it doesn't and that becomes problematical. Around here it tends to get so thick it starts to choke itself out. One thing about it though, you only have to seed it once and you have it forever. Just plow it up and it comes right back better than ever :roll:
 
I don't have a problem with any type of forage on my place but I know some producers have had problems with meadow foxtail. I think generally they had planted it for hay originally then moved to grazing and found it low yielding and un-palatable. It seemed they had great difficulty eradicating it. I don't have meadow foxtail here but thought I would pass on what I had heard. We don't have cheatgrass either if it's what Per calls downy brome. We did have it, or a very close relative in Scotland though.
 
The ground that the cheat is on is timber ground we cleared, we have tried various grasses and legumes but as we use it for dry feeding areas in the spring most of them don't last long. I actually found some Quackgrass seed after we had planted the oats last year and may seed it under the oats this year if the guy still has some.
Our swamps grow wild hay, Meadow Foxtail and Reed Canary will stay in some areas. Timothy, Alsike clover and Meadow Brome will die out in 2 or 3 years and I doubt if alfalfa would even germinate before it drowned or froze.
 
becareful what you wish for with quack grass. It makes good forage but is a killer in row crop land.
 
The best thing to spray cheat grass (or any other annual grass/weed) is a low dose of roundup just at greenup. The annual grasses are greening up before the desirable grasses most of the time. Even if some desireable grasses are present you get very little damage to them. I've never heard of 2,4,D, Banvel, or Tordon doing anything for cheatgrass. And the generic roundup is fairly cheap. Plateau works really well also but is expensive.
 
It's funny watching how things change with a change in practices. Before we had the cows, we no-tilled our farms and the annual applications of roundup pretty well eliminated the quack grass from our land.

Now I can see the value of it in producing hay and forage but there is none that I know of in our fields. Well there is likely some along the one line fence.

But it took about 10 years of no-tilling and glyphosate to clean it up.

For the cheatgrass problem, would it not be better to risk killing off the broadleaf population in a small corner and get the cheatgrass under control than to have it spread all over the rest of the adjoining land and do damage of a much greater extent, creating a much bigger problem?
 
burnt said:
It's funny watching how things change with a change in practices. Before we had the cows, we no-tilled our farms and the annual applications of roundup pretty well eliminated the quack grass from our land.

Now I can see the value of it in producing hay and forage but there is no that I know of in our fields. Well there is likely some along the one line fence.

But it took about 10 years of no-tilling and glyphosate to clean it up.

For the cheatgrass problem, would it not be better to risk killing off the broadleaf population in a small corner and get the cheatgrass under control than to have it spread all over the rest of the adjoining land and do damage of a much greater extent, creating a much bigger problem?
Click to expand...


thats what i would do. cheatgrass can get away from a guy in a hurry. i would rather lose a few acres in order to save hundreds, or thousands.
 
Nicky thanks for the tip about Roundup. We'll have to try that.
We don't have much cheatgrass, but we have some and it's where
I really don't like it.

South of Miles City down the Tongue River, it seems like that's all
there is. :shock:

I want the quackgrass to grow in the lots around the buildings.
I like it cuz once it is established, you can't stomp it out.
We don't have row crops, so that part isn't important to us.
 
gcreekrch said:
Faster horses said:
Wow. We'd like some of that quackgrass seed...
Click to expand...

They would likely put you in jail for trying to cross the border with it. :?
Click to expand...

:???: :???: :???:

Well it's not like she was gonna smoke it!!



Or was she??? :shock: :shock: :shock:




:lol2: :lol2: :lol2:
 

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