The Death of Fescue

dogghr

dogghr

Well-Known Member
A link was shared relating to Goldenrod management on a other thread of mine. While I’m not a podcast person I’m that my ADD requires pictures or video, I did listen to the entire podcast by Dr Harper.
What I found interesting was his suggestion of managing fescue. As you know I make fun of fescue always and lament the difficulties of its riddance on long standing pastures. It’s is aggressive, has a thick root mass , and inherent self preservation properties that fight efforts to eradicate.
Within the podcast he said to wait and spray fescue w gly AFTER 2-3 frosts.
Has anyone tried this late in the year? I’ve certainly have sprayed it but typically mid spring or late summer.
Thoughts?
Here’s the link

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...Jzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMDg2MjI0OQ?ep=14


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That podcast is also available on YT. I think his main reasoning behind that was to limit killing desirable plants that were in the fescue by waiting for everything besides fescue to go dormant:

 
@dogghr forced me to post this picture with his blasphemy.....

GIwP5ol.jpg
 
Native Hunter said:
@dogghr forced me to post this picture with his blasphemy.....

GIwP5ol.jpg
Click to expand...

How the heck do you still have that picture?? For such a nice guy I think you have an evil streak hiding within you!
With all the battles the Indians and Settlers fought over the beloved Kentuck canelands, I’m sure they all cringe knowing that their beloved grounds were planted into fescue.

But you can almost win the battle with fescue as you can see in this 7+ yo clover/ alfalfa / chicory plot. But after having a plot on this ridgetop for 13 years now , your beloved fescue still raises its head.
I need to quit plotting and go back to cattle and then my hate for fescue would diminish perhaps.
Now here’s a pic of said plot because I refuse for your pic to be the cover for this thread!!!!
f2e3c9426164ae49a1fc5869c8c65a9a.jpg



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I've always sprayed fescue and brome in the winter. Always did ok but it doesn't die in just one shot. Persistent stuff!
 
BenAllgood said:
That podcast is also available on YT. I think his main reasoning behind that was to limit killing desirable plants that were in the fescue by waiting for everything besides fescue to go dormant:

Click to expand...

To me he was saying best time to terminate fescue itself. Regardless tough to do spraying late Oct for me in the middle of hunting season.


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That was me that posted about the podcast. If you just Google Dr Craig Harper podcast. You'll come up with several. One of the best ones is the habitat. podcast https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...ZjE0ZTIzNDMyNDdkNzhlYTI5NjE4YjQyMGFiNGU?ep=14

I don't have fescue but I do have smooth and downy brome.its just as bad if not worse then fescue. Doing as he describes absolutely works!
After the second frost, I spend about two weeks with my backpack sprayer and glysophate spraying out pockets all over my farm. The next year will be a flush of annual beneficial weeds like rag weed and sunflower.
I think this year I am going to do it after the first frost to try and take out some of the western wheat grass a very short clump grass. As I'd like to have more big tall forbs.
 
dogghr said:
To me he was saying best time to terminate fescue itself. Regardless tough to do spraying late Oct for me in the middle of hunting season.


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Click to expand...

He said: "like if you have tall fescue and if you're further north of course it's going to be tall fescue and timothy and orchard grass waiting until after a couple of frosts when the desirable warm season forbs in the field have either gone senescent if they're perennial or if they have died if they're annual then you get a selective herbicide application out of a broad spectrum herbicide glyphosate two quarts per acre and you're smoking the perennial cool season grasses getting rid of those and then next spring you've gotten rid of that carpet and you freed up the seed bank and you get lots of stuff coming up that's interesting"
 
I do think the reason for fall spraying of fescue after the frosts is to keep from killing the warm season species. One thing to keep in mind is that in a lot of native grass mixes include Virginia Wild Rye and sometimes Canadian Wild Rye. These are cool season grasses. So use caution if you want to keep these species. I have Virginia Wild Rye in my mix, but it is not anything special. I only see it in a few areas - usually semi shady low areas next to fence rows.
 
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