Argentine Bahia Grass

[cutman]

I have a newly created 3 acre runway/landing strip that I would like to plant grass on. It will not get heavy airplane traffic, so there shouldn't be too much wear and tear on it. It's about 35 yards wide and 250 yards long and just happens to connect a major travel/bedding area to the major feeding area on the farm.

A friend has recommended Argentine Bahia Grass for our area. He has extensive experience both as a farmer and a manager of golf courses, so this is right up his alley.

Does anyone here have any experience planting Argentine bahia grass? It looks like it's fairly popular in pasture but mostly in the the deep Southeast, so not sure if many of you have used it before. I know it's not ideal to plant now, but I'm afraid that if I don't plant soon then I will lose it to weeds. We won't get frost until December most likely, and our summer heat/drought should end soon.

My drill has a setting for bahia grass so I will use that to plant. Any suggestions/advice? Seeding rate of 50 lb/acre sound good?

 

[Warrington]

We planted Bahia about three years ago around a storage building (probably .1 or .2 of an acre worth). We also planted in the fall (which I understand is not the best time to establish it) and I honestly thought it failed and wrote it off. Turned out that the next spring we had a fantastic stand of it and it has been going strong ever since.

We will be planting it on a 3 acre homesite this weekend with the expectation that it will show up next spring. Given some specific conditions and timing issues related to the site, we are just going to go ahead and get it in the ground rather than wait for better timing.