Everytime I mow the yard, I wonder why my lawn has at least 3 different types of grass: tight & thick (think afro) , the big thick bladed variety (think spiked hair) and the thin Illinois kind. I also have a ton of spots without grass.
I’ve thought about planting some grass seed in the bald patches and found myself wondering… how do they mass produce grass seed? Large bags of seed are sold but how do they harvest grass seed in such large quantity? How long does it take? Couldn’t I just pick the seed from my own grass and plant it?
This makes me wonder about a lot of things, like bottles of aloe and the like…
You likely have bluegrass (thick, thatchy afro), ryegrass (nice, not thick) and fescue (thicker blade).
You don’t need to plant seed to fill in gaps the size of a saucer or smaller. You need to rake out the thatch (cross growth) and allow the bluegrass to spread out.
Grass reproduces through seed and through stolens and rhizomes. Grass reproduces alot, especially when cut.
When mowed, grass tillers out (reproducing). The grass is trying to grow tall enough to go to seed (looks like wheat), but it can’t when it’s mowed so it tillers out (esp bluegrass). Grass can spread this way and fill in bare spots.
As for how it’s harvested: Dunno.
To harvest grass seed, you have to let it get tall enough for the stalks to mature; think wheat here. When I lived in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, there were over 400,000 acres of ryegrass cultivated for seed. It was harvested by combine-like machines after it got about 3 feet tall with mature seed heads. Then they burned the straw in the fields, creating huge clouds of smoke that filled the valley. I don’t know if they let them do that today, that was 20 years ago.