Millet and Johnson grass

[Otter 1200]

Planted my brown top early June it is about 6" tall, about 1/3 of my 5 acre field is covered with Johnson grass about 24" tall. So yesterday I bush hogged the field down to just above the brown top. What do you dove field gurus think, will it help, hurt or was it just a waste of time?

[mathewsarrowslinger]

Will help some but the Johnson grass is going to outgrow it. Most likely a waste of time.

[Aging Baby Boomer]

I agree with MAS, above. But if....if....IF your browntop draws enough doves for a shoot, the patches of johnsongrass will make good "blind" locations for shooting.

An alternate strategy might be to nuke the johnsongrass areas now w/ roundup or poast to minimize their impact next year.

[smallwater]

Sometimes a wicking bar can be used to apply herbicide to the Johnson grass over the millet.

[Calibogue]

Nuke it all and start over...... You won't have any browntop left during the season anyway planting that early.
Plant in two weeks.

[Highstrung]

Cali knows more about it than I ever will, but why not nuke at least that third or half of it. Food on the ground early isn't bad. You're looking at 45 to 50 something days. We knock down or cut large strips in most of the brown top we plant. If you have dead brown top, weeds, and a hunter without sense or a dog it about equals a lost bird. Dirty fields hurt in my opinion in only two ways. Birds will light on flowers and eat, enough shat growing up over them will rot (I know you have millet). It's about like cutting flowers. Weeds with a dog with no nose is not good. You're going to shoot so many resident birds until they move. After that you might have a couple half assed shoots. Late season you need something to get them to you. Clean fields make less lost doves.

[Calibogue]

Early feed on the ground for me comes out of the bag once a week!

[Calibogue]

On second thought I would replant ASAP..... Was thinking sept 15 for some reason.
You'll make in 45 days if you go ahead and plant.
Also, I would suggest no tilling if possible so as to reduce other Johnson grass germination.
I you have a conventional drill, burn hot with glyphosate and bush hog tight and drill.

[Highstrung]

Early feed on the ground for me comes out of the bag once a week!

Hahaha, I can always say we're "legal".

Another thing I wish somebody would come out with a hybrid sunflower that would grow over three feet high in good soil.

[Magic]

You are gonna have to treat that Johnson grass if you want it to go away. You have to break a few eggs to make a cake. Sacrifice what is needed to make a better end result. End result I mean a couple years down the road. The main goal is to never let it mature to make more seed. Boshhog what you have now down to the ground then spray what is left if you want to try and no till. If not just disk it real good spray what is still showing in the disked area and plant your millet within 24hrs of the last disking. Try and use at least 2qts per acre of glyphosate and put in enough crop oil to make it 1% of your tank.

If you can lay that spot out so you can periodically disk it to kill sprouting grass I would. That would greatly reduce your seed bank!

[Calibogue]

Hahaha, I can always say we're "legal".

Another thing I wish somebody would come out with a hybrid sunflower that would grow over three feet high in good soil.

I'm talking preseason hoss..... I'm always legal too!