A comparison of drills for direct seeding alfalfa into established grasslands
Author
Waddington, J.Issue Date
1992-09-01Keywords
comparisonseed drills
direct seeding
crop establishment
permanent grasslands
Medicago sativa
seedling emergence
Saskatchewan
pastures
soil water content
seed germination
range management
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Waddington, J. (1992). A comparison of drills for direct seeding alfalfa into established grasslands. Journal of Range Management, 45(5), 483-487.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
Journal of Range ManagementDOI
10.2307/4002907Additional Links
https://rangelands.org/Abstract
Information is presented on the suitability of various drills for direct seeding into permanent pastures and rangelands in Saskatchewan. Strips of sod 30 to 100-cm wide were killed during the growing season by glyphosate (N-[phosphonomethyl] glycine) in grazing lands at several sites in Saskatchewan. Six drills: 1 with a powered disk furrow opener, 2 with hoe openers, and 3 with rolling disk openers were used to seed measured amounts of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) seed in the killed strips in late fall of the same year or early the subsequent spring. Drill performance was assessed during the seeding operation, and emerged seedlings were counted early the following growing season. Seedling emergence ranged from near 0 to 48% of seed sown. Soil moisture conditions in early spring, which in turn were a function of winter precipitation, were a major limitation on seed germination. All of the furrow-opening mechanisms were capable of placing seed at a suitable depth for successful establishment in some situations. The best seedling emergence was obtained with drills having each opener suspended independently with sufficient weight to penetrate dead thatch and hard ground, and with mechanisms to control seeding depth and pack the soil around the seeds.Type
textArticle
Language
enISSN
0022-409Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2307/4002907