u/fend845

Good afternoon,

I recently bought a piece of my families dairy farm that has a 10 acre open hayfield that I’m trying to come up with a plan to get back in shape. It hasn’t been sprayed, fertilized or planted in at least 20 years, and it was always the last field hayed so everything in it almost always goes to seed before getting mowed and baled. 3/4th of it seems to be mostly a mix of canary grass, Timothy, orchard grass and red clover (and random weeds here and there but not too bad) the decent portion is a lower wet spot along a seasonal creek, it’s never standing water but it is wet a portion of the year.

The higher 1/4 of it though seems to be a solid stand of spotted knapweed. I brushed hogged all that last week, but now I’m doing research on how to deal with the knapweed. I really don’t want to kill everything with roundup and screw up the soil quality/kill off earthworms. I did read that 2,4-D would kill the knapweed/other broadleaf based weeds (including the clover) but leave the grass hay. Does that stuff screw up the soil microbiome/kill worms? I assume with that I have to wait until it grows up a bit, spray it, wait for it to die, and then drill desired grasses?

Ideally I wouldn’t spray this field at all but the knapweed is so thick I don’t think mowing and drilling a grass mix is going to do a thing. If this was your field, how would you handle it?

Side note: this would be in hay to round bale for beef cows.

Thanks for any advice!

Good afternoon,

I recently bought a piece of my families dairy farm that has a 10 acre open hayfield that I’m trying to come up with a plan to get back in shape. It hasn’t been sprayed, fertilized or planted in at least 20 years, and it was always the last field hayed so everything in it almost always goes to seed before getting mowed and baled. 3/4th of it seems to be mostly a mix of canary grass, Timothy, orchard grass and red clover (and random weeds here and there but not too bad) the decent portion is a lower wet spot along a seasonal creek, it’s never standing water but it is wet a portion of the year.

The higher 1/4 of it though seems to be a solid stand of spotted knapweed. I brushed hogged all that last week, but now I’m doing research on how to deal with the knapweed. I really don’t want to kill everything with roundup and screw up the soil quality/kill off earthworms. I did read that 2,4-D would kill the knapweed/other broadleaf based weeds (including the clover) but leave the grass hay. Does that stuff screw up the soil microbiome/kill worms? I assume with that I have to wait until it grows up a bit, spray it, wait for it to die, and then drill desired grasses?

Ideally I wouldn’t spray this field at all but the knapweed is so thick I don’t think mowing and drilling a grass mix is going to do a thing. If this was your field, how would you handle it?

Side note: this would be in hay to round bale for beef cows.

Thanks for any advice!