Tillage on Hay Ground

[MidMIfarmer]

In the last week we got an opportunity to rent a new field that currently has hay on it. We have worked under hay in the fall before and had good luck the next year planting corn or soybeans. But with it being to late to do any tillage now has anyone ever worked under hay in the spring and got a decent crop or corn or beans off it? Any suggestions of how to best work it in the spring?

Thanks

[c4farm]

After the hay starts to green up in the spring I would spray it with round up with a little 24D. Wait a couple days and disc it till you have a nice seed bed. Good Luck!

[idalivered]

About 20 years ago, one of my landlords had a field of alfalfa that winter-killed really bad. I molboard plowed it about the first week of may, it dried out and then got a nice rain. field cultivated , applied treflan, and planted beans. back then we post sprayed with pinnacle/classic. beans turned out nicely. I have seen 2 neighbors take off first cutting and then no-till soybeans into the stubble. No-till soys can work nicely, but in these 2 cases it didn't turn out well. it seemed like they had trouble establishing a stand. Maybe all the traffic of cutting and baling???

[CircleJAcres]

I always spray round up to give a good kill then plow it under nice and deep.  We still believe in plowing under our fields every few years.  Then disc it nice and level.  After you plant beans go back after the third tripholia of the beans and spray round up again.

[jonno]

Your area may be different....

In our area, we have some CRP that has been coming out and being transferred back into production.  It is being PUSHED to do this via NO-TILL (should be very similiar to taking out hay). 

I have seeded with my No-Till drill directly into blue grass stubble (sod) with no problems getting through the residue (unsure on the final results as I did this, this fall) but it has came up and is looking good so far.  I am not a CCA, but I would spray with roundup and 2-4d as another person mentioned as soon as it starts to green up.  I would then, try to raise a none-grassy crop (unsure on your typical crops..) if possible something that allows for a good grassy weed control in crop, I would then no-till directly into the hay sod (why waste the fuel with a disc, plow, cultivate, harrow, etc, to get a good seed bed?).

How many acres?

I have some pictures of seeding into SOD if someone wants to see them.

Jon 

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Here is a pretty decent Iowa State paper on going from CRP to crops, which is not identical to your situation but may give you some ideas of what works in Iowa.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/publications/crp18.pdf

If you have a good alfalfa stand, corn might let you put on better weed control in the spring.  If the hay is mostly grass, maybe soytbeans would let you control grasses.

If you plow, you'll want to do that as soon as the frost is out, at least that's how we used to do it when we plowed sod.  Back in the 40s and 60s, we'd figure we'd have to disk it twice to level it but these days once might be enough.

I'm set up for no-till, so I'd look to see if I could take a cutting of hay off about mid-May, give it a few days to start growing and hit it with a full rate of glyphosate with the idea of planting soybeans around 1 June.  3/4 soybean crop and 3T/acre of hay should work.

[Pupdaddy]

..What kind of hay? Is it an alfalfa field? Clover? Orchardgrass/Timothy/Fescue?. It makes a difference. If you know anyone that still knows how to do a "GOOD" job of plowing...harvest the hay...and immediately plow it about 10 inches deep. That way you get the soil completely rolled over.Hit it with the disc...or disk finisher...and plant it to a RR corn. Then when it gets emerged...about 5 inches...clean up the field with some glyphosate and dicamba mix. Atrazine in your pre-emerge won't hurt...but it won't kill an alfalfa plant...you really need the glyphosate to knock the alfalfa and grasses back.

..On the other hand..if you're a no-tiller..check the label on some Roundup...I believe you can still spray a hay crop..wait a couple days...harvest it...and then plant it to corn immediately. You should probably get a light application of a pre-emerge mix on...and then spray your RR corn with glyphosate/dicamba post.

[nwobcw]

What kind of tillage, if any, depends on your soil type.  If we spring moldboard plow we have to be awful lucky weatherwise to  get a good crop.  Breaking up clods etc.  Then if it becomes dry it will dry out to plow depth.  I will add that if the field has clover in it check with a CCA as it is very hard to get rid of.  RU doesn't seem to work very well on it.

[Pupdaddy]

I'm not a CCA...but I've had a few successes with getting rid of problem weeds. If you have clover that escapes the glyphosate burn down...a post application of glyphosate (In RR corn)..plus a couple ounces of Stinger should be the answer. You might even want to spike the mix with some dicamba too...but I'm not sure there's a label for it. I don't think there should be a problem...unless the surfactant in the glyphosate makes the dicamba especially hot. The glyphosate alone on a pure alfalfa stand will generally give you a good kill..and it should definately take out a grass hay, the one thing that might escape it is the clover...and it probably wouldn't be a problem if you could use 2,4-D on it too.