10 KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS SEED. 



The total crop in Kentucky is variously estimated at from 300,000 

 to 600,000 bushels of rough seed, of which about 60 per cent is 

 "fancy grade," the balance being "extra clean" or waste. The crop 

 west of the Mississippi is much smaller, probably not over 25,000 or 

 30,000 bushels of "fancy.;" but no reliable data are available for an 

 estimate. 



HARVESTING. 



SEASON. 



Kentucky bluegrass blooms in the latter part of May and the seed 

 ripens during the second and third weeks in June. The average time 

 for harvesting is about June 10 to 15. If the weather is favorable, 

 the time for gathering the seed may be ten to twelve days, but usually 

 the height of the season does not last more than five days. Stripping 

 usually begins when the panicle is yellow and the culm still green. 

 All the glumes should be yellow, except, possibly, a little green near 

 the base of the youngest. At this time the grain is hard, or at least 

 firm, and the after-ripening will enable it to reach full maturity. As 

 the number of machines (PI. I) needed by those growers who harvest 

 two or three thousand acres, or even several hundred acres of seed, 

 is large, and as the season is very short, it is not possible to wait until 

 the fields are in the ideal condition before beginning the harvest. If 

 this were done, some fields would become overripe and much of the 

 good seed would be lost by shattering. When the seed is dead ripe, it 

 becomes loosened from the spikelet and is often held by the web alone. 

 In this condition it is readily beaten out by a severe wind or rain 

 storm. 



HARVESTING GREEN SEED. 



The scarcity of machines, taken together with the competition 

 among the buyers of uncured seed has encouraged the growers to begin 

 stripping before the seed is sufficiently matured. Some bluegrass 

 growers go to the extreme of harvesting the seed while the entire 

 panicle is still green and the grain in the milk. By this means a greater 

 weight is secured, and since all bluegrass seed is bought at the rate 

 of 11 pounds per bushel, a greater number of bushels of uncured seed 

 can be harvested at this time from a given area than if the seed is 

 allowed to ripen. When such seed is cured by the producers this extra 

 weight is, of course, lost; but some who sell directly from the strippers 

 consider nothing but their immediate gain. Such seed heats more while 

 curing than riper seed, does not after-ripen well, and is finally of poor 

 quality, if not actually worthless. The temptation to strip seed too 

 green is increased by the fact that most buyers make no distinction in 

 price between different qualities of rough seed. Some of the larger 

 biryers do, however, refuse to accept seed harvested too green and 

 sometimes pay less for the crop of a farmer whom the}' know to be 

 careless about curing. 



