024: Grasses and Leguminous Crops in Kew York 



shady places and on bottom lands subject to overflow. It is appar- 

 ently better able to withstand overflows than is timothy, and fully 

 as able as redtop or blue grass. 



methods of cultuee 

 Seeding 



Orchard grass is very slow in starting and, until it is well estab- 

 lished, is easily injured by frosts and winter freezing. For this 

 reason it is best seeded in spring. Toward the south it may be 

 seeded in the fall with wheat or rye, but the usual practice is to 

 delay seeding until the following February or March. It is seeded 

 both alone and in mixtures of grasses and clovers. In the seed- 

 growing regions it is usually seeded alone at the rate of one bushel 

 or fourteen pounds of seed to the acre. Where it is grown for hay, 

 a heavier rate of seeding is employed — twenty to twenty-five 

 pounds — hut the thinner rate is better for seed production. The 

 seed is very chaffy and light and does not readily feed through 

 an ordinary drill. It is. therefore, usually sown broadcast with a 

 wheelbarrow or other seeder and covered shallow with a light 

 harrowing. 



Orchard grass is also sown in spring with oats or barley as 

 a nurse crop. In this case the oats or barley should be drilled in 

 on a well-prepared seedbed and the orchard grass seeded later, 

 usually without covering the seed. Care should always be taken 

 not to cover the seed too deeply, as this interferes seriously with 

 germination and may result in a poor stand. Wheat or rye are 

 better nurse crops for orchard grass than oats or barley, except 

 in the more northern sections, as they mature earlier, and the 

 shade that the crop causes is removed before the hot, dry weather 

 of midsummer comes on. If allowed to mature grain, oats and 

 barley usually dry the soil out more than wheat or rye, and the 

 grass plants suffer from a lack of moisture, especially in dry 

 regions. If seeded thinly, however, and cut early for hay when 

 the grain is in the soft dough stage, they make very satisfactory 

 nurse crops. 



Orchard gi-ass is sometimes seeded alone on a specially prepared 

 seedbed without a nurse crop, but when this is done weeds some- 

 times come in before the slow-growing grass becomes well estab- 



