Planting Time! (Waldo: price, safe, design)

[BrokenTap]

Quite a few people on here have some acres of land and may use them for pasture or lawns, so I felt compelled to remind many people that the VERY narrow window for successful frost seeding will be in place in a few weeks. If you have not got your seed yet, now is the time or you will miss the window to frost seed successfully!

For those that have never frost seeded before, its a decent way to over-seed an existing pasture or lawn with certain species of legumes...namely clover. Clover is a very difficult seed to drill through the soil because of its tough outer shell that tends to keep the embryo from emerging and germinating.

Frost seeding though, works well because after the snow comes off the ground, the cold nights and warm days tends to suck the seed down through the soil and as it does so, the expanding and contracting soil scours the seed which tends to make the embryo germinate. You get a better success rate over-seeding clover with this method. Simply wait until the snow is off the ground, use clover seed at 3-4 pounds to the acre, use a seed spreader of some sort, and then broadcast seed over the pasture you want to improve with legumes. You have about a 2 week window in Maine to do this.

If you are looking to plant shrubs, plants and stock ponds your ponds with fish, now is the time to order those things as well. I belong to the Waldo County Soil and Water Conservation District and they have special clover mixes designed for our soil, as well as shrubs, plants and trout. Other places exist of course, and every county in Maine has a chapter, so if you are looking for these things that are safe to plant and stock in Maine, here is an excellent source.

Waldo County SWCD Happenings

Soil and Conservation Districts have been in Maine since the 1930's and are local people dedicated to prevent soil erosion and water quality in Maine. They do that, not through enforcement, but by encouraging landowners (regardless of size) to plant vegetation, and stock ponds with fish...appropriately

I like my neighbors too, but I'll be darned if I am going to give them my soil!

[boonelsewhere]

Last year i drop about 5 lb of white clover from Johnny as ground cover in place of grass seeds, it did not went well for me very few seeds pop up, i hope to see some of them again this spring.

thanks for the link to Waldo Plants sale, price for Firs and Pines tree are good, I did not see any maple (sugar,rock) on the list.

[BrokenTap]

That does not surprise me. It takes clover 2 years to come in. I planted a few acres one year in clover and was mortified when nothing came up. I pretty near tilled it under and was going to try over when my dad told me to wait another year. He said it took 2 years for clover to pop up. He was right. Today its one of our best fields in regards to tonnage per the acre (4 tons), but unfortunately its our smallest field too.

[Submariner]

Cool, thank you

[boonelsewhere]

That is a good news, hope they will pop up for me this year.

4 tons per acre, are you refer to seeds harvest from plant.
wow, seeds retail for $8 to $10 per pound, that yield about $80,000.00 per acre Nice!

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

That does not surprise me. It takes clover 2 years to come in. I planted a few acres one year in clover and was mortified when nothing came up. I pretty near tilled it under and was going to try over when my dad told me to wait another year. He said it took 2 years for clover to pop up. He was right. Today its one of our best fields in regards to tonnage per the acre (4 tons), but unfortunately its our smallest field too.

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by boonelsewhere

That is a good news, hope they will pop up for me this year.

4 tons per acre, are you refer to seeds harvest from plant.
wow, seeds retail for $8 to $10 per pound, that yield about $80,000.00 per acre Nice!

Not quite. With bare earth you plant grass seed at 12-15 pounds to the acre. With over-seeding (filling in bear spots or trying to get more legumes into your pastures you would plant 3-4 pounds per acre.).

The tonnage I refer to is the harvest amount of dry matter per acre. In this case we are getting 4 tons of dry matter to the acre, or about about $240 dollars worth of crop. (haylage) This is what we feed our cows and not the seed crop; we harvest 3 timesa year to prevent the grass from reaching maturity which ensures the feed is high protein.