TIMOTHY SEED PRODUCTION 6 



pounds; Finland, 655,100; Sweden, 742,500; Poland, 516,700; Latvia 

 and Lithuania, 241,200; Germany and Czechoslovakia, 120,600; other 

 European countries, 13,300; and Japan, 10,000 pounds. 



Production of Seed of Improved Varieties 



Although the same methods may be used in the production of the 

 seed of improved varieties as in the production of ordinary timo- 

 thy seed, some special precautions should be observed. When a 

 meadow is sown with a new variety for the purpose of seed produc- 

 tion care should be taken to sow the seed on land free from other 

 timothy plants, and at harvest time it is well to mow at least two 

 or three swaths around the outer border for hay so that there will 

 be no danger of harvesting seed from plants of ordinary timothy 

 which may be growing along adjoining fences or meadows. Pre- 

 caution should be taken, also, when the seed is threshed that no seed 

 of any other variety of timothy is in the machine to become mixed 

 with that of the improved variety. 



Timothy meadows are rarely fertilized for seed production, al- 

 though yields of seed may be increased by the application of nitrog- 

 enous fertilizers. However, the use of fertilizer is not likely to be 

 profitable except when seed of a new variety for which there is a 

 good demand is being produced or when the seed is high in price. 



Harvesting with Binders 



Most of the timothy-seed crop of the United States is harvested 

 with binders, in much the same way as wheat or oats. 



The sheaves of timothy are placed in shocks. In the timothy- 

 seed producing area of the central West, each shock usually contains 

 from 5 to 8 sheaves, which are arranged in a more or less circular 

 form, as shown on the title page. Sometimes the tops of the shocks 

 are bound together, either with timothy stems or with binder twine. 

 A less common method of shocking timothy is to place the bundles 

 in two paired rows. 



Harvesting with Headers 



In some parts of the United States where timothy is grown for 

 seed production, especially in southern Iowa, headers have been and 

 still are used quite extensively to harvest this crop. 



Wlien a header is used, the cutter bar of the machine, which is 10 

 or 12 feet long, is usually set so high that many of the small late 

 timothy heads on the shorter stems are not harvested. As the stems 

 of sorrel, plantain, buckhorn, or certain other weeds that may be 

 growing in the meadow are usually shorter than the timothy, it is 

 fairly easy toi avoid gathering them with the crop. Timothy-seed 

 growers and dealers generally concede that the seed harvested with 

 a header is of better quality than seed harvested with a binder, and a 

 somewhat better price is often paid, for it. 



The heads, with parts of the stems varying from a few inches to 

 a foot or more in length, are carried by a moving canvas and 

 dropped into the header wagon or header barge which is driven 

 alongside the header. Two header wagons are used. While one is 

 being loaded, the heads are unloaded from the other in shocks re- 

 sembling haycocks. The heads are left in the shock yard, usually 



37844°— 36 



