Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

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Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

Gallinago 22 Jul 2010, 1:23 PM
Does anyone have experience of green hay spreading to create species rich grassland on flood meadows in an organic system?

We are looking to spread green hay on several large fields which have been in long term pasture for many years. Being organic means we cannot use sprays, so are concerned about getting succesful establishment.

Re: Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

gethin 27 Jul 2010, 5:01 PM

Are you going to just spread the green hay after you have taken a hay/silage crop off? If the green hay is not contaminated with injurious weeds, there would seem little risk.

If you are going to do lots of scarifying of the surface or cultivation, then you run the risk of encouraging weeds in the soil seed bank to establish. Thus, I would favour the above method.

Re: Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

Gallinago 30 Jul 2010, 1:13 PM
Thanks Gethin

This was part of the reason for the question. On 'conventional' site we would have scarified, but am reluctant to do so in this situation for the reasons you state. However, I was not sure how effective it would be just spreading on top of the cut sward.

Re: Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

Tracé 02 Aug 2010, 1:23 PM
Hi - not on flood meadows, but I have used green hay quite a bit on some of our chalk grassland reserves, and think the basics would apply.
Green hay is a relatively cheap way of increasing species diversity. However the downfalls have always been: time of year; everyones busy with harvest so shortage of contractors, weather; need several good dry days on the trot, machinery; what to use and where to get it from. After trying various methods, a couple of years ago we turned a corner; by trying a small forage harvester for the job. Initially I thought this might be too harsh and we would loose a lot of seed. However, after overcoming teething problems of blocking up (these machines are made for homogenous crops not fields with areas of both dense and thin grass), and the wind (which kept blowing the grass back down the shute!), we found that the forage harvester actually worked better for collection of green hay in wet weather! This also means that probably more seed is retained as it is damp in the grass - a really good thing, as normally the advice is cut like-for-like in terms of acreage, because you never really know how much seed you are collecting in green hay. We used two rear-discharge bunning spreaders that worked in tandem with the harvester allowing the chaps to keep going continually, even when the rain came in. Our contractors took two 10hr-days to cut, collect and spread 15.7ha of grass using a disc mower + tractor, a precision-chop forage harvester + tractor, and 2 rear discharge spreaders + tractors. A total of £3,200 at end of July 2009. A stark difference to the cost of seed for the same area (which is around £45 per kilo and requires 20kg/ha).
Make sure that the receptor and donor sites are not more than 10 miles apart. This is crucial as transporting the hay then proves difficult and you don't want bales of hay sitting for long waiting to be spread, as the interior of the bales heats up and the seed dies at over 30 degrees. Also, getting baled grass apart without spreading 'clumps' is difficult and should be avoided. Make sure to gain a species list from your donor site so that you can monitor the progress on your receptor site. The advice is to have at least 50% bare ground available before application of green hay. If you have'nt got this much I would recommend rolling, then topping as low as possible followed by a really hard grazing late summer, before applying the green hay. Of course if you have no favourable species anyway, one can Roundup the area first. Obviously not in your case though, and also not where you have an interesting grass sward starting to develop. Whatever your farm system, do not harrow to try and create more bare ground - all this will do is give you thistle and other weed problems for several years to come. The end of the summer is a good time for gathering many species but I would recommend undertaking the job two years running, and maybe altering the timing slightly to gain earlier/later species, or to just ensure a good application of seed. Following spreading, either roll the field, or preferably get some livestock in to eat up the straw and tread in the seed. For the first two years you may need to top the field one or even twice during spring/summer to reduce unwanted and competitive species; top at around 12" high to allow the lower flowering species to remain. By the end of the third summer, 50% of species recorded should be those gained from the green hay.
If you would like any further details on our chalk grassland creation work, please get in touch at trace.williams@rspb.org.uk. Hope this helps!

Tracé

Re: Reseeding species rich grassland on an organic meadow

FarmerTom 02 Aug 2010, 11:23 PM
Hi-
I haven't tried this personally, but was told it works.Cut your seed rich grass as if making hay no need to turn it but you may need to row it up,bale it in to round bales. Transport to your field quickly for the reasons that Trace gave. Just roll it out do not spread it, the thick mat of grass will kill the grass under it with out using herbicides the new seed can grow from the top down. You might get away with out wrapping it which would save you money. I guess you could do a similar thing with wedges of a small bale but you would have to string it to transport it. Has any one tried this method? is it a winner or looser.