"Other crop seed"

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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mooch91
Posts: 130
Joined: April 25th, 2016, 8:16 pm
Location: central PA
Grass Type: KBG, PR, TTTF
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
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"Other crop seed"

Post by mooch91 » September 4th, 2018, 3:53 pm

Well you learn something new every day...

I thought I had finally found an alternative affordable, decent seed to the products sold at the big-box stores. I had come across "ultra premium" tall fescue blend at Tractor Supply that had three well-rated varieties (in NTEP trials), had very low weed seed and 0 noxious weeds. It was also "uncoated", so it doesn't include 50% by weight of the special coatings sold by Pennington and Scotts.

What I failed to recognize was the 2.31% in "other crop seed". I thought that unless it was listed as a noxious weed, it would be a very controllable weed in turf. I had always focused on quantity of weed seed and quantity of noxious weeds when I made my seed selection, as I thought those were the results to be aware of.

Come to to find out today that "other crop seed" includes other turfgrasses, like orchardgrass and other pasture grasses, as well as poa triv. Both are issues I have in my existing lawn (orchardgrass is not too bad and gets crowded by the nomix except for early in the season; triv is a disaster in a significant part of my existing lawn).

Crap, I dropped about 40 pounds of this stuff on 5000 sq ft of renovation a couple of weeks back. I had used the same product a couple of years ago in a 5000 sq ft renovation and it worked very well, but I don't recall if the label was different.

Oh well, live and learn, best I can do now is to see how it comes in and address it next year if it fails. :banghead:

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ken-n-nancy
Posts: 2571
Joined: July 17th, 2014, 3:58 pm
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Level: Experienced

Re: "Other crop seed"

Post by ken-n-nancy » September 4th, 2018, 4:47 pm

Chalk it up to experience gained. It is the "other crop seed" being poa trivialis that gives me nightmares in my seeding projects.

It turns out that the specific "other crop seed" types that are most likely to be in a particular grass seed being purchased are the "other crop" seeds that are of a similar size/weight as the desirable seeds (whatever they are).

For Kentucky bluegrass, that means that poa trivialis is often some of the "other crop seed" as it is a similar seed to KBG seeds, so the automatic seed separating machines are unable to screen out poa trivialis from KBG (poa pratensis) seeds.

For a tall fescue blend, thankfully it is less likely that poa trivialis will be one of your "other crop" seeds, as its seeds are so much smaller than tall fescue seeds. Orchard grass and other pasture grasses are much more likely. Most alarmingly, 2.31% is a huge number. Given that tall fescue seeding rates are around 6-8 pounds per ksqft, and tall fescue seeds have about 250,000 seeds per pound, that means seeding is usually around 1.5 million to 2.0 million seeds per ksqft. That ends up being about 10 to 14 seeds per square inch. 2.31% of that means that you'll be having about one "other crop" seed in every 4 square inches of lawn (a 2" by 2" square).

A 2"x2" square is about the size of a post-it note - having a grassy weed in every post-it sized segment of lawn would not be fun. Hopefully the "other crop" is something benign!

I know that my worst issues with poa trivialis in my lawn are in areas that were seeded with less-than-top-quality seed mixes in the past.

mooch91
Posts: 130
Joined: April 25th, 2016, 8:16 pm
Location: central PA
Grass Type: KBG, PR, TTTF
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Experienced

Re: "Other crop seed"

Post by mooch91 » September 4th, 2018, 7:48 pm

Thanks.

I wonder if the "other crop seed" is the reason for this coarse grass that is shooting up among the other seedlings - growing very tall, very quickly. I thought it might have been something I did not kill off previously, but it's rooted too shallow. It could be an Orchardgrass, maybe a K31, hard to tell. I've been pulling the shoots as I find them.

Image

I'm also wondering if foxtail could be an "other crop seed" contaminant. I had an infestation of it when I used the same seed earlier in the spring. At that time, I chalked it up to not properly killing off the existing turf and the wooded area nearby. At least if it's foxtail, it's controllable with post- and pre-emergent.

Image

I took a look at the analysis tag on some bags of the same seed this evening. Some were of the same lot with 2.31% "other crop seed"; others were very low at 0.1%. I had bought a second bag that I did not distribute which I will be promptly returning for a refund.

The analysis tag says it's a "DLF PICKSEED" product out of Oregon.

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andy10917
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Re: "Other crop seed"

Post by andy10917 » September 4th, 2018, 7:56 pm

"Pickseed" is a pretty big operation.

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