Ob BULLETIN 1260, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
high-germinating seed on land which had received fall or early spring 
seed-bed preparation, by surface planting instead of listing/ and by 
sufficiently thorough cultivation after planting to prevent weed, 
injury to the crop. 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAYS, KANS. 
The date-of -seeding experiments at Hays. Kans.. were conducted 
with five varieties from 1914 to 1918, inclusive. This period included 
two relatively favorable seasons, 1914 and 1913, and three others 
that were droughty at times, but conditions were never so severe 
as those experienced at Hays in 1911 and 1913. The experiments 
were continued uniformly from year to year, not seriously interrupted 
by any such extremes of drought, soil blowing, excessive rain, or 
insect damage as occurred at some of the southern stations. 
Duplicate twentieth-acre plats were used in the experiments. 
The rows were 40 inches apart, planted in lister furrows in 1914. 
1917. and 1918, and surface-planted on fall-plowed ground in 1915 
and 1916. The preceding crop in 1914 was spring grain, in 1915 
Sudan grass, and in 1917 and 1918 winter wheat. 
The first date of seeding at Hays varied from May 1 to 5, which 
is about the average date of the last killing frost in spring. At this 
time the ground was generally in a fair state of tilth and moisture. 
but too cold for prompt germination of the seed. Generally there 
was a cold wet spell of 10 days or more in May after the first date, 
and often after the second date of seeding. 
The average time required for both May 1 and May 15 seedings to 
emerge was 14 days, as compared with 7 days for the June 1 and 
June 15 and 5 days for the July 1 seeding. Fairly good stands were 
usually obtained regardless of the date of seeding, since choice seed 
Avas always used and seeded very thick whenever conditions seemed 
unfavorable for germination. This practice made it necessary in a 
few cases to thin the stand. The earlier the seeding, the more 
Trouble there is from weeds. It was sometimes necessary to hoe 
the weeds out of the May 1 and May 15 plats. From a weed-control 
standpoint later seeding was the more satisfactory, because it is 
easier to kill weeds before seeding than after. 
The results of seeding sorghum on different dates at Hays. Kans.. 
are shown in Table 14. 
There is much less variation in the yields obtained from sorghum 
sown on different dates than ordinarily would be expected. In fact, 
they show that with proper care the sorghums may be seeded for 
forage purposes over a wide range of time. The best date for seeding, 
however, is between May 15 and June 15. For grain, the indications 
are more definite. The best yields of Dawn kafir were obtained 
from May 15 and June 1 seedings, suggesting that it should be 
seeded about as early as conditions are favorable. The superiority 
of the June 1 date for feterita and the June 15 date for Freed are 
very marked, indicating that these varieties are suitable for late 
-ceding. Freed matured fully each year in the plat seeded on July 1. 
It was noted that all varieties seeded on May 1 matured only 
5 to 8 days earlier in the fall than that sown May 15 and but 12 to 15 
lays earlier than the June 1 seedings. 
In actual farm practice at Hays it is found best to begin seeding the 
varieties having long seasons about May 10 to 15 and to try t-> 
finish witli the short-season varieties as early in June as possible. 
