Finally.....

[gcreekrch]

These old cows have been pulling us along for 40 years. I guess they will carry us further along the trail yet.

 

[ChrisB]

I question whether tile pays with the current grain prices. I plant reed canary.

Bean sprouts are valuable but tough to transport. Sounds like you are holding ducks?

Good grain crops locally, but I think the combines will not roll much until after freeze up.

Steve, How and when do you plant the reed canary? Is it just on lower ground? Have you had issues of it getting overly mature before being able to bale? Able to get 2 cuttings? With all the mud the past few years, I've been thinking of planting one lower ground field into canary for feeding my fall calving cows before they can go out on corn stalks. Will it come back after getting mudded up a bit from feeding in the fall? Thanks

 

[Stocker Steve]

Seed box on an old grain drill, with a lb of timothy or three lbs meadow fescue and some legume. Ladino persists the longest on low ground, BFT is second choice, Kura is unavailable.
Usually spring, but really wet spots many not work until August.
High or low ground, but it competes better on low ground.
Yes.
High yes, low sometimes. It does not like frequent cutting.
Yes, AFTER it establishes. Clip only the first year.

Reed canary usually beats tall fescue in the north. The big negative is that cows will not eat it if you try to stockpile. A nice long term low ground mix is MF, RC, WC, BFT. The RC establishes very slowly but it will take over as the others thin out.

I have grown RC with branch root alfalfa on high meadow. It makes better dry hay than the traditional clover mixes.

 

[gcreekrch]

238, 50" bale plugging lumps later, baled yesterday and finished wrapping today. One 3 acre patch had 49 bales on it. The field that normally does the best was the poorest this year. Still a bumper crop by 90 bales. Now to send some off for a nitrate test.