Planting bermuda Venezuelan-style: photos

[Whitewing]

As many of you recall from my posts of last year, it was brutal due to lack of rainfall.

This year things are much better rainfall-wise though I'm still on edge waiting for the weather to turn sour at any minute.

We planted a lot of bermuda last year and all but about 8 acres of it was for naught. We'd get one day of hard rain followed by 8-10 days of scorching sun and as you know, it's tough for bermuda to take root under those conditions.

This year we're not only more frequent rainfall, it's often followed by 3 or 4 days of good cloud cover and cooler temps. So far we've planted about 35 acres in bermuda (in one month's time) and it looks like it's all going to stick.

We plant about 5 to 7 acres at a time. I've found that when the land's ready, we can cover that much ground from start to finish in about 5 or 6 hours....cutting the fresh bermuda, loading the wagon, moving the material, spreading, and finally covering with the plow.

Also, if conditions do turn sour on us, then we've lost only 5 to 7 acres of work, not 15 or 20 like we tried to do last year.

Here's a few shots of the action:

Cutting:

Loading the "zorra":

A couple of shots of spreading the freshly-cut bermuda. Last year we did this by hand and boy was it work. This year I stumbled across a nifty spreader and the boys sure are happy. We can cover a hectar (2.45 acres) in about 10 minutes!

Here's a shot of the "end product", making bales!!!! I'm so happy we're finally at this point I just had to post a pic.

 

[Anonymous]

*Deleted*

 

[Faster horses]

Looks like those kids work better than the ones on Last American
Cowboy.

Your grass/hay looks good. Your cows will sure like that stuff.

 

[Whitewing]

Looks like those kids work better than the ones on Last American
Cowboy.

Your grass/hay looks good. Your cows will sure like that stuff.

I've been very impressed with how well bermuda does on my place. While I'm baling and storing for the long summer to come, my neighbor sells his hay. He's got folks from all over the state (and out-of-state) arriving to buy "pacas". I think most of them are horse folks.

 

[Trinity man]

What kind of winters do you have down there? I this morning that they was having some unseasonable cold snaps in some counties south of you. I always thought that it stay green year around where you are at.

 

[Whitewing]

What kind of winters do you have down there? I this morning that they was having some unseasonable cold snaps in some counties south of you. I always thought that it stay green year around where you are at.

May/June through the end of the year is our "winter"....or wet season. January through May is "summer" or the dry season.

Like you, I once thought it was green here year round....and in some parts of the country it is generally green year round. But where my ranch is located we can go months without a drop of rainfall. It gets very very brown.

 

[Trinity man]

What kind of winters do you have down there? I this morning that they was having some unseasonable cold snaps in some counties south of you. I always thought that it stay green year around where you are at.

May/June through the end of the year is our "winter"....or wet season. January through May is "summer" or the dry season.

Like you, I once thought it was green here year round....and in some parts of the country it is generally green year round. But where my ranch is located we can go months without a drop of rainfall. It gets very very brown.

I bet that took some getting use to. So you don't get freezing weather there just rain. Are you in the center of the county? I have a friend that worked for Exxon there and he loved it, but just not the leader of the county. You may have met him his name is Walt Harris Jr if you work for Exxon to.

 

[Whitewing]

What kind of winters do you have down there? I this morning that they was having some unseasonable cold snaps in some counties south of you. I always thought that it stay green year around where you are at.

May/June through the end of the year is our "winter"....or wet season. January through May is "summer" or the dry season.

Like you, I once thought it was green here year round....and in some parts of the country it is generally green year round. But where my ranch is located we can go months without a drop of rainfall. It gets very very brown.

I bet that took some getting use to. So you don't get freezing weather there just rain. Are you in the center of the county? I have a friend that worked for Exxon there and he loved it, but just not the leader of the county. You may have met him his name is Walt Harris Jr if you work for Exxon to.

The lowest temps I've seen have been in the upper 50's, and those are a bit unusual. It gets chilly sometimes when it rains and the winds blow hard. The clouds will come right down to the ground which is really pretty neat. My place is located near the northern coast about in the center of the country.

Haven't met Walt though I know how he feels about the leader of the country. I'm not too fond of Obama either.