Monty's Plant Food works on Coastal Bermuda Grass

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Monty's Plant Food works on
Coastal Bermuda in Henderson, Texas

George Tutchings runs The 44 Ranch in Henderson, Texas. He is currently using Monty’s 8-16-8 on some of his hay fields. One field is 15 acres of Coastal Bermuda and Bahia Grass mixture. Of these two grasses, Coastal Bermuda is more desired than the Bahia Grass because it has a higher nutritional value than Bahia.

Bahia is an invasive grass and can “take over” a field if competing with a shallow, minimal root structure. So the better the root system on the Coastal Bermuda, the less intrusive the Bahia will be.

The side of the field treated with Monty’s yielded the same as the side treated with conventional fertilizer, the biggest difference being that 16 ounces of Monty’s per acre costs significantly less than the 300+ pounds of conventional fertilizer applied to the “non-Monty’s” side of the field.

We often say that sometimes the big difference is below ground. When we dug up chunks of soil from the two different hay fields, the results were like night and day. The first picture below is the root system from the Monty’s side of the field after the dirt was knocked away. Compare that to the second picture below that shows very little root development. This is a true representation of conventional fertilizer pushing top growth.

Mr. Tutchings wasn’t expecting to see such a difference in the root systems, but did mention that he suspected some difference because of what he had observed from his tractor. There is a “gully-wash” that runs through the middle of the 15 acres (through both the Monty’s treated and the conventional fertilizer treated sections. He mentioned that he drove his tractor through this “gully-wash” over the Monty’s treated section that he could actually see the root systems in the tractors tracks (see below picture)

But when he drove his tractor over the side of the field that was treated with conventional fertilizer, he actually saw more dirt than roots. (see below)

We will do our best check back with Mr. Tutchings to see if his second cutting shows any difference (besides the cost) between the Monty’s treated and the side of the field that had conventional applied. We also expect to have information regarding nutritional value on the first cutting from this field, as well as information on the second cutting.