Frost seeding

[Bubbas Boys]

I am planning to frost seed in next month or so for some forage crops for pastures. We also have all dirt around our home that we started building last year and I am wondering if a guy can frost seed grass seed also like you do the legumes? Would love to get some started to have a mudless place for the boys to run. Thanks.

[Tana Mc]

I am a little further south than you are but I was thinking the same thing.
Right now we have about 2 inches of snow on the ground that is expected to melt today and tomorrow.

I have about half a bag of annual ryegrass that I have been moving out of the way all winter. I woke up this morning and had this thought-" Today I am going to try out this frost seeding idea on the lower half of the milk cow paddock...."
It may be too early but the top half of this paddock is planted in grazing wheat, clover and a little ryegrass so the two cows are not grazing it now and...... I am afraid I will "lose" this half a bag of seed if I shift it around in my barn many more times.

I am thinking that it is better to waste it on the ground in an experiment than find it in a corner two years from now or feed the mice.

Tana Mc

[geo in mi]

Frost seeding works in soils that have been frozen and heaved up due to the early freezing and thawing effect--then stay heaved and fluffy, or porous and open, throughout the winter so the seeds can filter down into the open pores. If this isn't your situation, then I think you will be disappointed with the results, come warm weather. If you already have an area around your house that is compacted and footworn(muddy from last year), then you will be wise to let the weather warm up so you can loosen it up and seed it with a mix of annual ryegrass, perennial ryegrass, and bluegrass mixture--Usually called high traffic grass in the stores.

Grass seed--well, nearly every seed, needs soil contact to germinate and get established. With frost seeding, the pores created by the heaved soil settle back down around the seed to do that. Otherwise, the soil ends up on the top of the soil and won't do nearly so well. Annual and perennial ryegrass will sprout fairly well on hard packed soil, but...if you run cattle or kids on it, they will just trample it down and strangle it out.... Even if you seed it per the instructions on the bag, you will have to have some nutrients/fertilizer in the soil so the roots can grow. And you'll have to wait until the grass gets at least three inches high before letting critters or kids on it. Along with that, the bluegrass will take a soil temp of at least 60 degrees and at least fourteen days to germinate.

I would get some "Police Line, Do Not Cross" yellow tape...

geo

[Bubbas Boys]

Good info. Thanks. I like the police line tape. Haha