World Feeder Bermuda

[MargePiwowarski <MPiwowarski@compuserve.com>]

Amber,

Let me tell you our experience with World Feeder Bermuda!  We ripped out
perfectly good coastal sod.  We tilled the ground.  We soil tested and
fertilized with the recommended mixture of fertilizer and trace minerals. 
We soaked our (Houston, TX) very fertile gumbo with a soil surfactant.  

We drove to get the sprigs of super grass, so they wouldn't suffer a few
days shipping.  We soaked the fresh cut sprigs overnight in many, many, 55
gallon drums; filled with fresh water and the prescribed amounts of Miracle
Grow.  We spent hours and hours and hours planting sprigs.  We did half of
them by hand (at this point we had too much time and money invested to
trust just discing all of them in with the tractor) and the rest with the
tractor.  

We watered them every day for 60 days.  (Last year was very dry here).  

End result?  Every single sprig died.  We lost well established coastal sod
that will take years to get back to the state it was in before we ripped it
out.  If we had just used the soil surfactant and fertilizer on the
existing grass we would have been WAY ahead.  

The sprigs languished and slowly died while the perennial swamp grasses
flourished because of daily watering.  Gradually, the coastal started
reappearing.  

When we went to Poteet, TX to get the sprigs, I noticed that although that
grass has been established for years, it hasn't spread out of the original
fields and they use herbicides to keep weeds out.  We don't have to keep
weeds out of established coastal.  I don't think the hybrid is either hardy
or comptetitive.  It takes constant care (if it grows at all) to maintain. 
My exoperience isn't unique, I know of four other people (real farmers, not
horsemen) who also didn't have a single sprig live last year, they were in
Mississippi and Louisiana.  

I called them and Louis said I must have done something wrong.  Then he
said we should have used Roundup before we ripped out the old sod, to
prevent anything from growing in until the World Feeder was established.  I
wondered why he forgot to mention that before we planted and he said I
should have known.  Then he asked to talk to my husband!!!!!  I'm the one
with the Ag degree, the farm gal.  My Chicago raised city boy better half
don't know JS about growing grass (but I guess male gonads count for more
with Louis?????).

They will replace my sprigs if I pay shipping.  They won't provide sod (the
only way to go in our climate) at any price.  I'm not inclined to dig up
any more pasture and work all summer to try to get his very fragile grass
to grow.  I think the coastal would crowd it out in a year or two, even if
I did.

Funny thing, before I bought it, I asked if there was any growing in our
area I could go look at.  He only told me of growers hundreds of miles
away.  Now, he claims there are acres and acres in Dayton and Clear Lake,
both within easy range for me, one 40 acre plot he planted himself years
ago???  Funny he forgot that *before* I bought his grass?

I bought a load of hay from the grower in Poteet.  Nice hay, looks like
coastal and the horses liked it.  I don't think it was *that* much better
than coastal, however, won't drive there to haul it home again.  I suspect
you could get comparable analytical results from coastal if you did all the
herbicides (if you even need 'em) and fertilizing his grass requires to
produce as described.    That much fertilizer is gonna raise the protein
and sugar content of any grass it is applied too.......

Marge, queen of the failed super grass experiment and several thousand
dollars poorer as a result.


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