26 BULLETIN 981, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
HAY PRODUCTION. 
PREPARATION OF THRE SEED BED. 
On account of its small seed and slow early growth, Sudan grass 
requires a seed bed that is well prepared, warm, moist, and free from 
weeds. For surface planting either in rows or with a grain drill, soil 
prepared as for wheat or oats is usually satisfactory. It is best to 
plow the ground in the spring, about two or three weeks before it is 
intended to sow the Sudan grass. Plowing at this time warms and 
aerates the soil and turns under the early crop of weeds. After 
plowing, the field should be harrowed to pulverize the clods and setile 
the soil. After two or three weeks the second crop of weeds will 
have started, and these can be killed with the disk or drag harrow. 
In the dry regions row plantings are sometimes made with a 
lister. Where this method of seeding is practiced, it usually pays 
to blank list the ground in the fall or early spring and follow this with 
sufficient spring tillage to destroy the weeds at seeding time. Disk- 
ing or some other form of cultivation should precede sting whenever 
it is planned to list and plant in the same operation. 
USE OF FERTILIZERS. 
In the Central and Western States fertilizers for Sudan grass are 
not necessary, but in the Southeastern States, on the poorer soils, 
moderate applications of some fertilizer, chiefly combinations of phos- 
phorus and nitrogen, will be found profitable. Sudan grass is not 
adapted to infertile soils, and profitable crops of hay should not be 
expected unless a reasonably good soil is chosen for growing it. A 
legume of some kind, such as vetch, cowpea, or clover, should be 
ect on worn-out solle which need building up. 
Tests of acid phosphate applied at the rate of 200 pounds to the 
acre were made in Kentucky, and in only two cases out of ten did it 
fail to give profitable increases in the hay yields. The average 
increase attributable to the fertilizer was 68 per cent. In experi- 
ments on gray sandy soil at Calhoun, La., in 1915 Sudan grass_ 
yielded 0.75 ton of dry hay per acre on unfertilized plats. With an 
application of 315 pounds of cottonseed meal per acre the yield was 
1.66 tons per acre, an increase of 121 per cent due to the fertilizer. 
An application of cottonseed meal and acid phosphate in equal parts 
at the rate of 315 pounds per acre resulted in a yield of 2.13 tons per 
acre, an increase of 184 per cent over the check plats. These plats 
were planted in rows 3 feet apart. In broadcasted plats on the same 
soil the yield was considerably larger. These experiments, though 
limited in number, indicate the wisdom of using fertilizers in the 
Southeastern States. 
Barnyard manure nearly always increases the yields of Sudan 
grass. It is generally more profitable, however, to apply the manure 
