I'm going to spray a field to kill the grass for the first time so I can plant in a few weeks. My order will be spray, till, and then spray again, then plant. (bad order?) Also is spraying more than the recommended amount per acre a bad thing? Thanks for the help.
I am assuming your spraying gly? It is fairly deadly, I wouldn't make it to strong as they have recommendations for a reason and you'll be wasting money. However I don't worry about exact measurement. your plan should work just fine. Only issue with over tilling is opening the ground up exposure to air, therefore reducing your OM levels in the soil. Tho is why you see so many guys doing the no till drill type system. i don't have a drill so I till and try to just limit to help keep that organic matter high in the soil. Hope this helps!
Seems like your order will work out fine. Spraying more than recommended can't hurt I don't think, just more cost.
Also, that second spray application is most likely going to be a wasted one. If you get a good kill before tilling, there is no need to spray again that soon.
How are you all determining his second spray to be a bad one? I don't see how soon he plans on the second spray. Most likely when he tills he will disrupt a seedbed underneath the ground. He will get new weed growth. Another spray would not hurt anything at all. He might be planting brassicas in July. This would allow first kill, till, wait a few weeks second kill, then plant a couple weeks after that. if you don't till again on the final planting you would most likey have almost a weed free plot going into fall. Can an you provide us with what you want to plant and actually weekly breakdown of your planning schedule.
He stated in his post his plan is to plant within a few weeks. I agree with the others. That second spray is not necessary. Spray it, let it sit, then when ready for planting in a few weeks, till lightly and plant. You should be good to go.
This is exactly my plan. Spray with gly, wait 1 or 2 weeks and check it. Till, then let sit 1 or 2 weeks then check it again and if weeds look bad after the till I may only spray were needed or do a complete spray again. All depends on how it looks. then after the second spray (as needed) I will be prepping it for a brassica blend but am also putting a Sorghum plot screen on the outside edge so I need to put that in a little sooner.
I'm guessing you'll plant that at the end of July/early August? If so and it were me, I'd spray it now, possible spray again middle of summer and then till right before you plant. Tilling a month or two before you plan on planting will do you no good.
this isn't a bad plan either. I have had great success planting on ground that was filled after spraying. Then sprayed again then I spread seed before rain and packed. Reasons being the seed still has a lot of small places to land and once packed the seed bed is nice. It also doesn't distrub a seed bed right before planting. No right or wrong way to do it. Just different ways.
mid august seems a tad late for northern WIS ? everytime you disturb the soil, you will bring up dormant weed seeds
Lol, geeze...recommendations are all over the place guys. If you have turf type grass in it, I'd mix the gly at full strength and add AMS and maybe even clethodim. Some grasses can be tough as crap to kill out. I had some tall fescue here year before last that roundup just kinda pissed it off. Other than that it sounds like you have it figured out. Milo likes 60+ degree soil temps for planting and it's pretty long season so I'd pay attention to soil temps and get that done asap. I'm sure you have a better grasp of the growing season than I do as far as you area and brassica. Good luck.
That's the beauty of this; no particular recommendation that I have seen is right or wrong just depends on how much time/effort/money wants to be put in.
