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Trying to seed Meadow Brome Seed through the air seeder

M

Manitoba_Rancher

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Was out trying to seed some Meadow Brome tonite and all it would do is plug up the manifolds on the air seeder. Im wondering if I blended some grain in with the seed if it would make it easier. Any ideas would be very helpful......
 
30 lbs. (5 gal. pail) of wheat or barley to the acre mixed in will pull the grass seed through. We mix ours in a mixmill and auger it straight into the airseeder. Cut it early to reduce competition.
 
That's a good idea,to mix it with a mixmill.So how do you decide how many bushels of grain to mix,with the grass seed?And how do you decide what to set your drill at?I have 100 acres of meadow bromegrass to seed,and i want to seed it at 10 pounds an acre.
 
The regular drill is going to be tougher to set.

As for mixing it, just keep track of the portions. If you want to seed a bushel an acre of oats, wheat whatever, use the weight and add the pounds per acre of grass seed you want.

An air seeder can be calibrated with so many hand turns of the metering system. You turn it the number of turns and weigh the mix that comes out. For 1 bus of wheat (60 pounds) plus the 10 pounds of grass seed, it is 70 pounds of the mixed seed.

A regular seed drill you would have to guess (start with a slightly higher setting than the one for just 60 pounds of wheat) drive a marked distance and refill the drill with weighed buckets. Some drills would be easier than others as the settings are easier to work than others.

My old DK5's are 7 feet each and each one has a highly variable rate set. They seem to change the setting over the course of the same field. I reset them 6 times over 600 acres this year. Needless to say I rent a valmar set up to seed grass.
 
What ever you do only mix enough grain to pull the grass through. A "nurse crop" is just that, not a full fledged crop. You will be rewarded with a more vigorous catch of grass if it doesn't have a lot of competition.

We seeded another 400 acres down last year and it was into barley/winter wheat stubble. Barley seeded for silage and winter wheat under seeded for spring grazing. 1/2 L roundup pre-seeding 50 lbs 12-51-0. No additional Nitrogen went down prior to seeding the grass/barley mix. 1 1/2 T to the acre of bale silage taken off in early August and now the grass catch is outstanding. It looks like the alfalfa mixed in with the meadow brome is fixing enough N to meet requirements.

Lots of rain makes anyone look smart!
 
Bill said:
Lots of rain makes anyone look smart!
Click to expand...

You are right on that account. My philosophy on the intensive grazing concept, and making a lot of extra work out of too many cross fences and watering stations, is that, "An extra inch of rain takes the place of a whole lot of management." :wink:
 
Jason said:
The regular drill is going to be tougher to set.

As for mixing it, just keep track of the portions. If you want to seed a bushel an acre of oats, wheat whatever, use the weight and add the pounds per acre of grass seed you want.

An air seeder can be calibrated with so many hand turns of the metering system. You turn it the number of turns and weigh the mix that comes out. For 1 bus of wheat (60 pounds) plus the 10 pounds of grass seed, it is 70 pounds of the mixed seed.

A regular seed drill you would have to guess (start with a slightly higher setting than the one for just 60 pounds of wheat) drive a marked distance and refill the drill with weighed buckets. Some drills would be easier than others as the settings are easier to work than others.

My old DK5's are 7 feet each and each one has a highly variable rate set. They seem to change the setting over the course of the same field. I reset them 6 times over 600 acres this year. Needless to say I rent a valmar set up to seed grass.
Click to expand...
Thank's Jason,that helps me out a lot.I took my fertilizer suppliers advise on how to seed grass,since i bought the seed from them.They first of all told me to use a valmar,with the valmar the bromegrass kept plugging the runs.So then they told me to use the fertilizer spreader because everyone that had used it had good luck that way.They said the fertilizer spreader would cover 80 feet,so if i went on 40 foot passes it would double up and i would have an excellent catch.For some reason on the last field i seeded this spring,i wanted to see just how even it was spreading.So the neighbour suggested laying out a tarp to see where it was all landing,i was very disappointed :mad: to find out it was only covering 20 feet,and not the 80 feet they told me it was going to cover.I bought more seed then i needed in the first place,because the fertilizer spreader was not very accurate in pounds seeded an acre.Now i have to buy more seed again because the seed i put down,didn't cover the area they said it would.So now after i bale the oats off,i can go back this fall and seed the 20 foot strips that were missed every round :mad: .I wouldn't mind if we were in a drought and it didn't germinate that i had to redo it again,but when it is as wet as it has been this spring it really pisses me off :mad: !!!My biggest downfall in life,is trusting people to much.Another lesson learned the hard way.
 
if you use a valmar it has to have the agitator kit in it. we seed a 70-30 brome-alfalfa mix without a nurse crop and calibrate once and just keep seeding. after a quarter section our rates work out really well. it's mounted on a degelman heavy harrow and that's all the working it gets. no burn off or preworking. what we seeded last july is now just about up to the mirrors on the truck and a real good stand. the brome that didn't germinate last year did this year and is filling in really nicely. the secret is that agitator kit. we'll never use a nurse crop again.
 
Tip 1 never take the seed/fertilizer dealers word at face value. They are in business to sell.

Broadcast spreaders are notorious for bad spread patterns.

Usually they recommend a pile of fertilizer to mix with the grass in a valmar. Quotes here have been in that $65 an acre range, $40 of it fertilizer.

Blowing wheat or oats on top with the grass would generally not allow them to have a full germination, but in wet years anything grows. The grass needs to be shallow but the grain likes an inch or 2 of cover.

I like the sounds of the agitator but have never seen one for rent with it.
 
We seed grass and/or alfalfa with our air drill. It's a Flexicoil, and it has an agitator in it. Sometimes we'll seed it with a nurse crop, so we put the grain in one tank and the grass seed in the other. Calibrate each tank to the desired pounds per acre, usually works out pretty close to the pounds were aiming for. Alfalfa, we've seeded just by itself, turned out well.

As for valmars with agitators in them, never seen one yet.
 
shelly: As for valmars with agitators in them, never seen one yet

you can order the parts from valmar. it essentially gives you a flexi-coil delivery system. takes a couple of hours to install.
 
Somebody should tell our fertilizer/chemical dealer that. :x 3words wouldn't have had the problem he did then. Hmm, maybe I'll tell them! Thanks Don.
 
don said:
if you use a valmar it has to have the agitator kit in it. we seed a 70-30 brome-alfalfa mix without a nurse crop and calibrate once and just keep seeding. after a quarter section our rates work out really well. it's mounted on a degelman heavy harrow and that's all the working it gets. no burn off or preworking. what we seeded last july is now just about up to the mirrors on the truck and a real good stand. the brome that didn't germinate last year did this year and is filling in really nicely. the secret is that agitator kit. we'll never use a nurse crop again.
Click to expand...
When i was going to order my bromegrass seed through my fertilizer company,i told them if they planned on selling it to me,they better have a way for me to seed it.They said they would,it costed $600 to order the parts to put the agitator in the valmar,but they were to cheap to buy it.Personally i think they are going to go tit's up,and didn't want to put out the cash.They put almost like battery cable ends on the rotating shaft going through the valmar,and actually it did feed reasonable well,but i would have preferred if they would have put the agitator in the valmar like i wanted.My problem with the valmar was not it feeding out,but when it came off the feed rollers in the valmar and dropped down into the tubes,it would plug the tubes right there and then the wind couldn't blow it out to the booms.Don on your valmar did you have to change the black tray on the bottom of the valmer,so the holes were bigger so the grass wouldn't plug the holes?
 
Jason said:
Tip 1 never take the seed/fertilizer dealers word at face value. They are in business to sell.

Broadcast spreaders are notorious for bad spread patterns.

Usually they recommend a pile of fertilizer to mix with the grass in a valmar. Quotes here have been in that $65 an acre range, $40 of it fertilizer.

Blowing wheat or oats on top with the grass would generally not allow them to have a full germination, but in wet years anything grows. The grass needs to be shallow but the grain likes an inch or 2 of cover.

I like the sounds of the agitator but have never seen one for rent with it.
Click to expand...
Don't worry,i will never take there word again!!After i get the oats baled and see how bad the grass strips are,i will be going back and having a chat with them again.And if we can't come to some kind of agreement,they won't have to worry about selling me anything again.
 
I used to mix the brome seed in the spreader with the fertilizer then set it at half rate and doublr spread-north/south then east/west but then I'm kind of a master farmer roflmao.
 
As for guys praying for a rain to cover up lazy grass management-they seem to think whining will grow grass too-we went through ten years of straight drought here-wouldn't of done it without all those bothersome crossfences lol. Saved our cowherd-lots of guys didn't. If op[enin g a gate every couple days is too much work for anybody-I'm surprised they can breath on their own without help lol. I'm as lazy as they come and even I can manage to get that done.
 
we only had problems with plugging the manifold on a windy day and stirring up pieces of straw from the stubble and the odd bit would land where it shouldn't have. if you have any half plugged hoses that slows down the airflow enough that the venturi for that run won't have enough pressure to keep the run clear. valmar says you can change manifolds to the larger opening if it's a real problem.
 

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