Originally Posted by blumsden
Harold, that's what I've been doing the last couple years. I spray wait about 3 weeks. The grass falls over on its own. Then I sew my seed into it. It stays fluffy, not matted down. The seed sprouts under it, but has to be several inches high to even be seen, so it protects the young sprouts to let the field get established. Eventually, the thatch will decay and lay completely down and start feeding the soil.


Something that probably needs considering about mowing versus just dragging is the effect it has on the biomass. Mowing and processing the biomass down into smaller and smaller pieces is going to speed up the rate of decay and also cause more N to be tied up right after planting. Leaving the biomass whole will cause a slower rate of decay and have he N tie-up gradually spread out over a longer period of time. Its due to the fact that mowing is exposing a much larger amount of surface area of the biomass to the microbes. For someone who is just starting out and having issues with thin biomass....I'd think they would probably want to just drag and leave the biomass intact. If you have too much biomass then you may want to mow and hit it with some extra N.....Just my thinking on this.

Last edited by CNC; 10/31/19 11:02 AM.
We dont rent pigs