Hay Land

[Mufferaw]

Does anyone do any prep on hay land in the spring regarding fertilizing or leveling?
Is there an easy way to level fields or fertilize fields rather than breaking over and re-seeding. Some of my fields are 8-10 years old fairly rough and pretty much all nutrients would have been removed. Any experience with running liquid through a coulter to add fertilizer to hay land?

[nicolaas]

plow it and band in 200 lbs of 11-52. That will last for next 10 years.

[grassfarmer]

Plow it and what? reseed?

[Mufferaw]

I know in the past I have broken hay land over not done anything with it. You lose one full year with zero productivity but it does come back OK. Looking to avoid the cost associated with re-seeding. Other options exist with some land like winter feeding or intensive grazing but those strategies don't lend themselves on all land. I think just aerating the soil after 6-10 would be beneficial to break apart the root mass.

[woodland]

Mufferaw I realize rotating your hay land into cereals for two years or so isn't cheap or easy but the increase in production should more than offset the cost. If you can no till in some greenfeed with a disc drill and reseed your hay mix you will probably be money ahead after a few years. Alfalfa loses the ability to fix nitrogen after 5-7 years anyways. We float on granular but have no experience with liquid fertilizer or using a coulter. At least that's what we find works here. We're trying to increase the productivity of our pasture since it is increasingly harder to find more ground here.

This is a shot of us chopping second cut on a pasture that wasn't used for grazing this year. We had lots of rain and this field ran 15 Tonnes/acre over the two cuts. Very impressed we were.