Got a favorite forage?
Grass is greening up and its the start of the grazing season. Do you have a forage that has been especially useful on your operation? Switchgrass is starting to gain a lot of interest because of it’s possible future use as biomass for the ethanol milling process. It’s also great for mid-summer and fall grazing. We’re looking for your thoughts on which forages are hits - and those that are misses. Click on the comment button to share your blog.
Related Topics: Small Producer Challenges
May 9th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Where I raise cows it is not a planted or irrigated pasture. We are running cows on native bunch grasses and salt grass. The catte gain well on this feed but it can be too dry and course for them in the fall if we don’t get any moisture. The CRP grasses are a planted field and depending on what the farmer planted some CRP grass is more cow edible-friendly than other grass. If the CRP program is dropped and we have to start pasturing the CRP to get an income off the ground what do you suggest we do to make the feed a more palatable option? Burning is not an option unless the lightening will strike.
May 10th, 2007 at 12:37 am
My best advice on grazing CRP that is no longer enrolled in the program is to get in and graze it early. Many of these cool-season forages get tough and stemmy and cattle don’t like them later in the season.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I planted Winter Triticale for the first time last fall(late August in Colorado) It really did well - came on so fast this spring the weeds never had a chance in what was a very weedy field before. It is now 30″ high and ready to cut for hay. Great crop.!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Steve Lucas of Virginia shared this comment with me via e-mail. He says: My favorite forage is what my cows are eating today. Today that happens to be bluegrass ( poa pretense), small hop clover (Trifolium dubium), white clover (trifolium repens) and fescue (Festuca arundinacae) . Tomorrow when I move them to another field, their diet will change. I checked a random square foot area in tomorrow’s field this morning, and the menu includes: bluegrass, fescue, orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) white clover, Bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon), lambs quarter, ragweed, and horse nettle, (Solanium). The forages growing in this field are a reflection of the physical characteristics of the field (aspect, soil type, fertility, organic matter, slope), and the grazing management of the field. Every field is different. My 160 acres of pasture is currently divided into 25 grazing
units, and this summer the number will probably grow to more than thirty. Grazing periods last from less than a day to as much as three days. Fields that get grazed harder tend to have more bluegrass and clover. Fields that are not grazed as hard or as often tend to have more fescue. This grazing management has also allowed native warm season grass, in this case Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) to start to establish in some fields. The ONLY perennial grass we have planted is 6 acres of switch grass (Panicum virgatum) that gets grazed occasionally during the summer. If the weather gets really dry the switch grass/lespedeza give the cool season grasses some extra rest. The six acres, grazed in three acre divisions gives fifty cows and calves five to six days of grazing two to three times during the summer months.
Most of next week, my favorite forages will be bluegrass and white clover on some north and west facing slopes. Last week was some too tough fescue on south slopes that didn’t make the cows too happy. In short, in spite of what you may plant or call your favorite forage, your forage stand will be an expression of the physical nature of your land and your grazing management.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
This is a great discussion on forage management. I think the collective comments from this group can really be condensed into one major theme…flexibility. A cattleman‘s favorite forage is not necessarily a particular species, but rather a combination of forage resources that fits their particular environment with a minimum of agronomic inputs. The name of the forage species is not nearly as important as its intended purpose…keeping cows off of harvested feedstuffs. Obviously the forages that fit this requirement differ drastically between environments from north to south and east to west. Whether you are in the northern plains grazing smooth bromegrass in the spring, millet in the summer, oats in the fall, and corn stalks in the winter; in the southern plains using winter wheat and bluestem or bermudagrass; or maybe in the east grazing tall fescue; or in the west roughing cows on a winter range diet of sagebrush and cheatgrass. The goal is utilizing forages that are available at the lowest cost and filling in the gaps with forages that are flexible and even some that aren‘t so flexible, but sure are handy like alfalfa, CRP, or turnips. Grazing more and feeding less is the key to efficiency and efficiency equals profit.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
This probably isn’t the most desirable forage for cattle grazing, but a few years ago my father interseeded rye with alfalfa. Boy, did it attract deer! They would be pawing up snow in the middle of winter to nibble on these plants. Hunters in northern MN have asked us to seed their fields and pastures the same way.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I’m curious how some of you guys who practice rotational grazing on a large scale (like the guy with 30 paddocks who was quoted) get water to your cattle.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
To answer Rob ,you usually have to put in alot of new water sources or some very creative fencing to manage the water and forage correctly.We added 300 acres of controlled grazing and put in 5 new waterers with 4000ft of new pipeline.This was added to 7 sources of water we already had.This is separated into 18 paddocks.Creativity is the key.Look outside the box to make things work the way you need them to.
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