Hay reseeding

[sagewood]

Has anyone out there had any experience with reseeding tame hay after first spraying out with Roundup and then reseeding with a no-till drill? Does one need to reseed a silage crop for the first year and then reseed the hay in the fall? I don't want to expose the soil by deep tilling and turning the soil etc. because of the lack of moisture. Should one agressively harrow the soil prior to the no till drill planting and then harrow and roll the seed after??? Any help with any of your experiences would be appreciated.

[seedsman]

I have a bit of experience direct seeding into hayland. Alfalfa won't germinate for a year after the old alfalfa is killed, so that isn't a good option. I prefer direct seeding for moisture, time and fuel issues

[sagewood]

So would it be best to spray out the old hay this spring, then seed a greenfeed type of crop, and then seed the alfalfa/brome/timothy mixture next spring??

[seedsman]

If you have alfalfa in the stand now, and want to have some alfalfa in the new stand, then it would be best to have it in an annual crop for a year. If you don't have any alfalfa now, it might work well to spray everything out and then start with a new stand. I have seeded grass into an afalfa stand with no problem. The alfalfa gradually died out and the grass took over.