The right sort of grass

Yesterday my brother and I were speaking of what "we would do differently" in our journey "back to the land" that started about 45 years ago..  Very high on the list was the topic of what sort of grass we would plant again..  We are in northern Florida and back then we planted a grass called Bahia on the sixty acres that we cleared..  It was an easily seeded, low priced, deep-rooted variety that grew everywhere around here..  (I even made a contraption that collected the seed from the roadsides around here so the seed was essentially free.)  But boy was it a mistake and how we have regretted it...  It grows so tall and so lushly and is so hard to mow that we have spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars on machinery mowing it again and again over the years..  Since then we have learned how a different type of grass can make such a difference,..  Grasses have such different qualities so choose carefully and wisely..  The grasses all  vary in their height, shade and moisture tolerance, the way they spread and their ability to tolerate  pests, disease and traffic...  We have learned to really appreciate the lower-growing varieties such as centipede, zoysia and the  easy-to-mow varieties such as St. Augustine...  The fortunate thing is that often-times and wonderfully these varieties will slowly overwhelm and push out the taller Bahia...  This may seem like a small thing but mowing 60 acres twice a year is a whole lot easier than mowing it ten times a year..  So if you live in the Southeast,- don't plant Bahia,.. (unless you have cows)...

At least you had lots of biomass.....
I guess grass variety depends on the uses. A fast growing grass would presumably be better if you were going to have livestock, or needed a ground cover against erosion for example.
60 acres sounds like a lot of lawn.....

David Fraleigh wrote:So if you live in the Southeast,- don't plant Bahia,.. (unless you have cows)...

... the problem is the solution!

Yesterday my brother and I were speaking of what "we would do differently" in our journey "back to the land" that started about 45 years ago..  Very high on the list was the topic of what sort of grass we would plant again..  We are in northern Florida and back then we planted a grass called Bahia on the sixty acres that we cleared.

David, have a look at regen and mix seeds in with what you have.  If you use a mix of grasses and forbes plants then you can spread grain directly into the existing mix without the need to use too much energy.  Use a mix of cows, sheep and goats to clip the grass by 10 - 20% before sowing.  Use a few of square feet in a protective cage as a control.  Alan Booker has said here during webinars that nature will cover any bare ground with weeds as a part of the healing.

For my money, Rachel Ward's experience is a good place to start https://permies.com/t/223616

Best wishes

This is an older thread but I'm going to put in my 2 cents. Thinking about the "right sort of" grass is really exactly the way it needs to be looked at. It depends on the purpose of the grass. Beyond that, you have varieties (genetically selected for) of specific species. I'll target the St. Augustine listed here first. The original/native variety of St. Augustine produces a staggering 8 tons of biomass per acre per year. Imagine trying to mow that! Now picture how many cows you can feed. Application/objective has a big effect on desirability. Conversely, Kentucky bluegrass, before WWII, was the dominant grass by far pretty much everywhere tall fescue grows now, and the height of it........Two and a half feet tall. Excellent for cattle. Probably a bit of a nightmare for a lawn. Genetic selection has altered that species extensively as well. Tall varieties of either of these (I find them highly desirable for livestock, actually preferable in most (not all) cases where they could be planted) to be hard to come by.  And then you have varieties of orchard grass that botl and put up stalks early (great for hay) and those that are late (good for grazing). And KY31 tall fescue vs novel endophyte tall fescues. And then the coarse, invasive reed canary grass vs the forage varieties.

People would pay you to cut the hay. Something like every 5th bail is yours to sell or do whatever with. The person cutting hay will know buyers. But then you rob your soil of fertility.

Option two is better. If you don’t want to deal with your own cattle lease it to someone else with a restriction on the amount they can put on the property.

As far as grasses go I planted an “improved” native mix. Big bluestem, side oat grama, wilman love grass. Green spranglehorn(which I’ve never seen), and Klein . I also have a mix of 4bermudas in another spot.

Some people south of me do Bahia but it’s protein level is lower than a lot of other improved species.

The native style mix excels with little to no added nitrogen so grazing or just over seeding clover or something is all it needs. It spreads by seed so cattle must be pulled off in September or so and let go to seed the first few years.