Any interest in a group sunn hemp seed buy?

I talked to Richard Petcher today to inquire about a bulk seed rate for sunn hemp. Our club had good results with it last year and we intend to plant even more so this year.

Here's the deal: the going rate is $90/50lb bag. Shipping is about $35/bag. It's $125 per bag to ship to your door (shipping based on last year's rates). I travel a lot for work so I was abLe to pick it up last year and save the shipping. He offers a rate of $85/bag for 5+ bags and $80/bag for 40+ bags. Is there any interest in a bulk buy that might save us all a little money? Im willing to pick it up and deliver it within reason. I live in the Oxford area and work out of an office in Oneonta but I cover everything south of I-20 for my employer. I'm on the road a good bit and I can make delivery arrangements if/when I'm close to you. I would ask you guys to pay $90/bag to help me out with my gas expenses. That's the going rate and would still save you considerable money over having it shipped. I'm just gauging interest at this point. If there's enough interest, we can iron out details later. I plan to order and pick up in mid-March and get it planted in late April.

Heck yea, i'll take a 50lb bag, i love the stuff. I live in Jacksonville and work in Anniston, so meeting up wont be difficult.

Yelp, Hancock seed has it for $89.99/50lbs, with free shipping, so if we don't get enough guys to go in to get the cheaper price, we could get it from Hancock.

They don't appear to have free shipping on the 50lb. bags. I checked it this morning and the 50lb bags charge $24.32 for shipping via UPS. They do have free shipping on the 5, 10, and 25lb bags but the price is considerably higher on those.

FYI, to those who may look at the sunn hemp on the Hancock website, some of the information there may be a little misleading. They show a recommended seeding rate of 30-50lbs/acre. Mr. Petcher recommends 15lb/acre. He's dealt with this stuff more than anyone so I'd use his advice. Secondly, Hancock states that sunn hemp is considered invasive or weedy in some areas. This is also misleading. I advise anyone concerned to talk to the guys at Petcher Seeds. Sunn Hemp gets this designation because it's in the Crotalaria genus which contains hundreds of species of plants, a lot of which are invasive and weedy. Extensive research has shown that sunn hemp will not produce seed at Latitudes this far north. The plant has no means of reproduction in our climate.

Can you not get your local feed and seed to order it for you? Ive seen some talk on sunn hemp and it seems like everyone has to order it online

Yeah. The Blount County Co-Op priced it at $125/bag. This stuff only produces seed in more tropical climates. I don't think there are a lot of folks importing it. Anybody that's buying seed and selling it is likely getting it from Petcher. Why pay someone else's markup?

question? since this stuff grows like a weed like yall say it does, does it germinate easy? such as rye? just curious bc I'd like to plant some in a rd that isn't accessed and will get plenty of sunlight

Yea, the free shipping is on the smaller bags, didn't notice that before. About the seeding rate per acre, i've planted this stuff several times, and 15lbs an acre by itself is thin, and will allow weeds to grow. I like using 15lbs/acre of sunn hemp and 25lbs/acre of buckwheat. Eliminates most summer weeds buy shading them out. I grew mine this past year using the infamous throw and mow method and had great germination. If planted on fertile ground and not mowed, it will get close to 10' tall. I wouldn't plant it in a road, that i was planning on using, because you wouldn't be able to see where you were going. Yelp, i still want a bag, maybe several others will get some, too.

We'll be buying it whether anyone else does or not. I'll pick you up a bag.

I really can't say what rate ours was planted at. We hired someone to do it. I left instructions on which fields to plant and how much to put on each based on 15lb/acre. I wasn't there to see it planted but it was all planted. I plan to plant it myself this year so we'll see what rate works best.

As far as germination goes, I can tell you we planted when it was real wet, almost too wet. No kidding, some of our plants were 2-3" tall in a week. This is the only stuff I've ever seen that can outgrow the browse pressure. We've tried corn and beans and those are useless because our deer density is too high. Maybe the hemp got a jumpstart because they weren't familiar with it. I don't know. All I can say is that after 4-6 weeks it was waist high and every plant showed evidence of being browsed. We didn't get it planted until July last year because of poor weather and equipment failure. I can't wait to plant in late April this year and see what it does.

How are y'all planting your fall plots in the fields where you plant the sunn hemp? Throw and mow or traditional discing?

Have any of you sprayed it with any chemicals trying to kill it, or trying to kill weeds in it? I would like to plant about an acre, but that soil has a large enough sicklepod seed bank to smother out anything. It might not smother out sunn hemp but I wouldn't grow it if I couldn't keep the sicklepod sprayed.

N2, we did traditional soil prepping. It may work for throw and mow but they do warn that if the plant is allowed to grow too long the stalk becomes hard and takes longer to decompose. It is suggested to mow it down if the plant starts to flower.

Fur, we didn't spray it. I'd advise you to google Petcher Seed and call Richard and talk to him. I don't know if it's compatible with any herbicides or not (doubt it). A high seeding rate on the hemp may resolve your issue.

10-4. It seemed like alot of thach to disc in. I just figured it would be a good cover for top sown seed. Thanks for the response.

If you'll plant it at about 25lbs/acre it'll be thick and will choke out most weeds. I hate sicklepod. If i were you, i would disk, let the sicklepod start growing, spray to kill the sicklepod, then sew the sunn hemp and just drag over it. I planted my fall plots this year into some standing sunnhemp, that i had already bushhogged down to about 3'. I sewed the seed and then bushhogged the hemp down to about 18". This didn't kill the sunnhemp and it left food for the deer to eat, while the other was germinating. The hemp at this point will regrow to about 3-4' before the frost will kill it. Gives some vertical cover in the plot. I let my hemp rot on the top of the soil, i didn't incorporate.

Our club is contemplating on planting sunn hemp this summer using the throw and mow method to see how it does. If we do,I was just gonna drive 30 min north to hancock and pick up some. If that's the case,I don't mind picking up yours yelp if it'll fit in the bed of the truck. How much would you need and when are you looking to plant

I appreciate the offer. We have a club meeting at the end of February so I'll find out then how much we want to plant. I'm content to pick mine up from Petcher. I frequently travel within an hour of his place anyway. We planted 3 bags last year and intend to increase it this year. If blumsden takes a bag, we'll at least have 5 bags which will get us a little lower price.

I intend to plant at the end of April. Mr Petcher believes that's about the perfect time for our area. I told him we were roughly about the same latitude as Montgomery.

I definately want a bag. Let me know if you want the money now, and we can meet up at your convenience.

No need for money now. I plan to order and pick up sometime between mid-March and early April. It will really be dependent on my work schedule and when I'm in that area. I'm down that way pretty frequently but I can't bring it back during the risk of rain. I can keep it dry at home but don't want to risk it getting rained on in the back of the truck. I'll contact you when I make the arrangements.

Sounds good, i wont plant until May, anyway.

I'll offer what my experience has taught me in regard to Sunn hemp. I've grown it 3 years.
At about 60 days, mow it to 12-18". If you let it grow for a full season, you cant get rid of the residue. The stalks will be as big as your thumb and you can't cut it in to the soil.
If you cut it back, within 3-4 weeks, it will be back to 4-6' tall.
The stuff will put a lot of nutrients, N,P & K, back into the soil. I planted a wheat, oat, rye plot behind sunn hemp with no fertilizer added at all and it was the prettiest, most productive plot we had.
The deer eat it, especially late season, and in some locations, if I don't plant 1-1/2 to 2 acres, they wipe it out, before it gets started.
I'm going to plant a lot of it this year and it will save a lot on the fall fertilizer bill.
Last year I bought it at a local feed store for about $90 per 50 lb. bag. 15 lbs/acre broadcast alone is plenty.

Also I've seen the poorer the soil such as high thin hills the better it does

I've got some Sunn Hemp on order which I'm really looking forward to trying this year. I do have a couple of questions about mixing with other seed. I plan to plant the sunn hemp with either Lab/Lab, regular soybeans (from local coop), iron clay peas, or the Eagle seed beans. I plan to mow once the get 3' tall back to 18" or so based on the recommendations that I have read on this site and others. I also plan to leave a portion of my plot standing at the end of the season and plant my fall plots in the rest. My concern is that when I mow the SH will it not allow the taller beans like the ES and even possibly the Lab/Lab to mature? Just curious who has planted other seed with the SH in the summer and what were your results? I would love to have soybeans that would actually be able to put on mature beans while being planted with the SH. Then I can leave the beans and SH standing on about 1/3 to 1/2 of each plot, mow out and disc the middles to plant in fall forage. What are you thoughts and recommendations on this?

SH is so aggressive and a totally all together different type of plant I would recommend planting it by itself. It would be a waste of $$$ and time to mix with soybeans and peas. Also planting depth varies so much between those you plant one too deep or too shallow

I don't have any experience mixing the sunn hemp. I am on the Petcher Seed email list and did see an email last week about a sunn hemp mix that they were having good results with. I would encourage you to look him up and give him a call. He's a super nice guy.

The only thing i like to mix sunn hemp with is buckwheat, because by the time the sunn hemp is 6' tall, then the buckwheat has gone to seed and it will reseed after you cut it. The mix that Yelp is referring to, i think, was for grazing cattle. You can mix it with pea's, and bushhog it, the pea's will regrow, but you won't be able to produce pods.

can you just broad cast this stuff like a rye grain and it still germinate or does it have to be covered up?

I meant top sow'd

I sewed mine into my standing cereal grains, and mowed them down over the top. I had great germination. Buckwheat does the same thing. I wait until the buckwheat is headed out with seed, and thats when i mow them both. The buckwheat will resprout from the bushhogged seed and the sunn hemp will regrow. No disking needed.

You might could get by with top sowing. The seed is roughly the same size as wheat seed and that germinates okay when top sown.

I can tell you that at $90/bag, I'm not going experiment. I'm going to try to put it 1/4" deep.