Perennial & Biodiverse Pastures
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Guilford/Onion Grass
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Guilford/Onion Grass
I have thick mats of it on some paddocks & it’s clearly choking out/retarding the growth of what has been sown in. How to deal with it without herbicide?
in one paddock in year one – we put free range pigs across it and that cleared some patches.
year 2 I tilled the whole paddock with an offset disc & sowed into that.
year 3 it’s back again – not as thick, but pretty bad. I’ve direct drilled seed into it, as is – it’s holding back anything except oats that’s sown into it.
ideas?
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5 Replies
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Hi Will,
have you done a soil test of the affected area? My experience has been that Guildford bulb will favour three things. Low pH soils, low Phosphorous levels and to some degree soil compaction.
i have had really good success by lifting pH to over 5 in CaCl and addressing P levels according to soil test recommendations.
cheers
Eric
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Thanks Eric – I’ll look into it
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Hi Eric, i have a test site on my place at the moment, we currently have an interesting result, there were three strips that had nitrogen applied last year, along with PK etc based on soil tests, theses strips had most FOO last year, however these 3 strips are now showing the most gilford grass in early growth, very easy to see.
The test site is in low PBI soil and maybe the strips are more deficient from last years growth
They have been soiled tested, so we might get a better picture once results are compiled
cheers Justin
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I am familiar with your trial site Justin. We are running 8 identical trials in other catchments…
Last year H2O was the most limiting factor . The N plots also had all other nutrients applied so it will be interesting to see if the Guildford bulb remains a dominant species in the composition!
your site also has a pH over 5 so that should help with the nutrient cycling!
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Is the key then to get the other grass/legume species to be the most dominant & to out compete the Guilford grass?
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