Did a bunch of dirt work, have roughly an acre of bare dirt.
Was planning to do the fertilizer and seed with a broadcast spreader. Looking at ~600-700 bucks if I do it myself.
On the other hand, I know a guy I trust that does the hydro mulch.
Will do rye for winter, bermuda for next spring, fertlizer, and supplements for about $1500.
I've seen places he has done and they look great within a month.
Really leaning toward the hydro mulch, but I really don't know anything about advantages or disadvantages. Anyone have strong opinions one way or another?

I did hydro mulch where I needed grass sooner due to erosion. In other areas I mixed winter rye/unhulled Bermuda and spread myself. I think a year later the areas I did look equally as good on average. If you have the time I would just do yourself.

Yes. You will be at the whims of weather if you just seed the bare ground. The hydroseeding is no guarantee, but it definitely puts the odds more in your favor. Request that he use wood fiber and not paper mulch.

You can also rent a hydro seeder and diy.

Put the hydro down now and you will have easy pickings for the start of dove season. I put that stuff out all the time for work and it's amazing the amount of birds that it brings in.

I don't know where you live, but $1500 for an acre is really cheap. I would be careful with that.

I'm in the business

quote:

---

Yes. You will be at the whims of weather if you just seed the bare ground. The hydroseeding is no guarantee, but it definitely puts the odds more in your favor. Request that he use wood fiber and not paper mulch.

You can also rent a hydro seeder and diy.

---

^^^knows what he's talking about

quote:

---

I don't know where you live, but $1500 for an acre is really cheap. I would be careful with that.

I'm in the business

---

Good to know, thanks.
That may be a discount as I'm a longtime customer for other ag services he also sells. Plus he's a founder of the COOP and gets great pricing on the seed/fertilizer to begin with.

You could also drill seed. It's usually cheaper than Hydromulch. It goes without saying though that regardless of which method you use the growth you get is gonna depend on what kind of water you can get on it.

quote:

---

You could also drill seed. It's usually cheaper than Hydromulch. It goes without saying though that regardless of which method you use the growth you get is gonna depend on what kind of water you can get on it.

---

Also my concern. Regardless, watering could be problematic. It's an active horse pasture. One horse in particular screws with everything he can reach. Add in another few hundred for t posts and mesh.

It was fill. Old creek bed bisects my place. The county rerouted it ~30 years ago. I had a line on free dirt when some guys dug some swimming pools. 120 loads of mostly clay garbage, but it leveled out that old ravine. Think 100 yard long 40 feet wide strip. Erosion is a bit of an issue in that it has a slight grade and is bare. That said we had 9 consecutive days of rain without much issue.

Should have said I have a pull behind aerator and pull behind broadcast spreader. That isn't an expense.

We hydro seeded about 10 acres last August. No idea on cost, I'm just the safety guy. When it comes out it is green, which you've probably seen before. Somehow the birds knew there was seed mixed in. We would have hundreds of doves at a time walking around pecking. I thought for sure they ate it all, but it grew from what I can tell on google earth. We had this glue stuff that we added to each batch to help it stick. This was for a landfill cap and were given specific instructions for what we needed. The process was a pain in the ass for 10 acres, but what was really beneficial is that you could put everything you wanted spread in the hydromulcher and spread it at the same time. We used paper mulch, rye, foxtail millet, fertilizer, glue(wasn't actually glue), and water. For an acre it wouldn't be that bad. We had a 500 gallon hydromulcher which may seem like a lot, but we had to do four tanks per acre. Longest part was filling the hydromulcher with water.