Forage/Grain Seeding mix

[Aaron]

I am looking at formulating a seed mix for a long-lasting rejuvenated stand on my bale-grazed areas. I am currently feeding on the same areas as I did last winter (this is the last year for those sites), so fertilizer is not an issue. I won't crunch the numbers on fertilizer spread by the cows this winter until spring, but, my guess on total N and P concentrations over these past two winters will be somewhere in the 800 and 150 lbs./acre (respectively) range. This is over about 12 acres.

So, here is my thinking. The long-term portion of the seed mix will be Reed Canary and Kura Clover (depending on price - otherwise Trefoil). The cover crop will be Oats, and either annual Rye or Barley, or a combination of both.

Seeding will consist of making several passes over the bale-grazed area with the diamond harrows, followed by broadcasting with a 3pt spreader and making a couple final harrow passes.

Nitrates in the oats is a worry. Will leaving oats until hard dough stage alleviate any nitrate concerns? A neighbour and I baled oats in the hard dough stage off of one of his newly seeded fields this past fall. Feeding some of those bales I made to my backgrounded calves has made me a believer.

Lodging is basically a given (in some of the open areas anyways). Wondering if the annual rye/barley combo would help alleviate that. This isn't barley country, so it doesn't reach half the height of oats.

How well does annual rye hold its protein and palatability, later into the season?

Are there any common awn-less varieties of Barley?

These fields are clay and clay loam with very good to adequate drainage.

 

[fargus]

The barley is going to go down, at least as bad if not worse then the oats. Not aware of any varieties that are awn-less. I'm assuming you are going to bale and wrap your cover crop, not take it dry? If you do that, and wait until the oats are in the hard dough stage that barley will be dead ripe and shelling like crazy. I'd harvest when the barley is mid-dough (max energy) and your oats will be just into the milk stage, so you should still get half-decent protein. I'm not sure about the nitrate thing, I'd be more concerned if you were harvesting at the boot stage, had drought stress and then 2 inches of rain right before you cut.

I'm assuming you mean annual rye (cereal) not ryegrass? If you are, it doesn't hold it's value all that well with advancing maturity. You're saving grace is that it is hard to thresh, so if it gets dead ripe you will still get most of it in your bales, it doesn't shatter like barley will.

Down here there is a lot of barley/oats/forage peas used for overseeding. Good energy from the barley, good protein from the peas and oats, some fields are yielding close to what corn silage will. I know you won't need the N, but it's another option that might work for ya.

 

[Aaron]

No, going to take it dry. That's what we did at the neighbours. He had done it years ago when he was more into selling breeding bulls and heifers, so he knew it worked (I thought he was a little off too). It does shell out a fair bit, no more than 30-40%. But it is quick to get up dry and the calves love it, his as well as mine. They will eat 95% of the bale before they go for hay, and as a perk, I don't have to haul pails of grain out. A lot of the other neighbours do it in the milk stage. And their oats this year, with all the rain, don't look or smell nearly as good. Yes, we think a little out of the box. Now we cut it with a haybine. If we both do it this year, we will probably get another neighbour to swath before we bale. The conditioner rollers were the culprit for the high % shelling.

No, I meant ryegrass. I am not looking for 100% cover of grain. I like to have a little green mixed in with the oats.

I had thought of peas. May still happen. Perhaps that would be a better combo than the barley to keep the oats from going down?

 

[fargus]

The peas are only semi-erect to begin with, they'll climb on the grain.... probably won't help the standability issue. The swather sounds like a good idea. I know very little about ryegrass, hopefully someone else will chime in.

 

[regenwether]

Be sure when dealing with Canary grass that you use the newer varieties. Such as Palaton or Venture. They are in low alkaloid content, making them more palatable to grazing animals.

Both Canary and Kura Clover are very slow to get going. Figure yr 3-4 to really get good production however once you've got it...your set!

I was just getting a good stand of Kura in one of my pastures and had a real bad case of Horse Neddle. I had to go in with a high rate of Milestone...so no more Kura. I'm going to have to wait till next yr to start over again.

 

[Kingfisher]

The peas are only semi-erect to begin with, they'll climb on the grain.... probably won't help the standability issue. The swather sounds like a good idea. I know very little about ryegrass, hopefully someone else will chime in.

I think the peas are so friendly you couldn't go wrong throwing em in with his mix. If he swaths I think they will just add to the bulk matter no matter how poor they might do...

 

[1982vett]

Arron, my understanding with nitrate problems the solution is dilution...once it's there (if it's there) it doesn't go away...even if you take it as cured hay.

I think generally you get nitrate problems from a stressful growing period. Drought or some cause a slower then normal growth pattern.

 

[Aaron]

Well my mind is changing continually about this and I have now added yet another idea into the mix, millet. We did proso millet as a cover crop about 13 years ago on about 30 acres and had a lot of luck.

So with my 11 acres, I think I will do 3 separate trials using some combination of the grasses/legumes below.

Venture Reed Canary
Kura Clover (not sure if I will use it or not)
Oats (Either common or possibly Jordon)
Peas (not sure on variety)
Trefoil (home seed)
Proso Millet
Italian Ryegrass

Any suggestions on 3 good combo mixes of these would be welcome. I'd like to see Trefoil in every mix as it is the legume of choice in our family. Here are 3 combos I thought of.

Combo #1

Trefoil
Oats
Reed Canary
Ryegrass

Combo #2

Millet
Peas
Trefoil
Reed Canary

Combo #3

Oats
Millet
Rye Grass
Trefoil

 

[Stocker Steve]

Your mixes are almost as complex as mine! You just need some forage radishes and a couple more clovers to be competitive :cowboy: :
Oats is great but Kura will not like it. Do not expect much Kura in the stand. Some recommend clipping the seeding at 4 to 6 weeks...
Peas are usually added to increase silage food value. I have never seen it baled.
Since millet is more of a warm weather annual I would add meadow fescue instead. The reed canary will choke it out after a while... unless you go to a 3 cut system.
Love trefoil. May want to add a couple pounds of alfafa in for fun, but neither one likes broadcasting...
I always put in Ladino clover in the mix. It seems to really like these out wintering areas.
I have put in RC with reed canary but it is too competitive.
I have started to use forage radish to open up the soil.
I have heard good things about rye grass roots but have always used festolium instead.

I don't own a disk ripper and my $425 worth of tillage/planting equipment is pretty basic. A couple passes with the spring tooth (it has a spring tooth harrow attachment, press drill the mix, and then pack it with a culvert filled with cement. I think compaction is a limiting factor for out wintered areas, and I am thinking custom chisel plowing as an experiment. I think the ideal work up would be disk ripper (pick rocks), spring tooth (pick rocks), press drill oats & grasses (pick rocks), Brillion legumes (press in the remaining rocks) ...

 

[Aaron]

I could just throw everything in one field and see what happens. Now that would be complex, and likely a real mess.

I don't have much hope for the Kura and I know how hard it is to get established. I might just add a couple pounds to the acre and see if anything goes.

Baling peas would be a new method for sure.

Millet won't survive the winter here. Winter kill is too great, so it's an annual.

Don't care for fescue of any kind.

Alfalfa is dead to me.

Surprised you have no luck with broadcasting trefoil. That's how we replenish it in our fields.

The less fuel I have to spend to renew a field, the better...hence the bale grazing. Feed two years. Harrow a 1/2 dozen times. Broadcast. Harrow again once or twice. Whatever comes up can't be any worse than what I started with. :lol:

 

[Stocker Steve]

I re read some old Jim Garrish report on alfalfa vs. BFT in Missouri. Due to the poor initial fertility - - the alfalfa blend establishment cost twice as much per AU as the BFT blend. I am not sure how long of a stand life they analyzed.

I only see decent BFT stands here in dead furrows and swales. I think our fertility is too high, and/or our rest period is too short.

Rumor is that some alfalfa's will last 7+ years of grazing... ;-)

 

[Aaron]

The reason for the good BFT stands in dead furrows is because your letting it go to seed.

Easiest way to increase BFT yield is to cut it late in the season every few years and let it seed itself when cutting with a conditioner.

 

[fargus]

The only thing I see that might be an issue is the mix with peas and millet. Peas gets going early when it's cool and damp, millet is a warm season annual (C4 respiration) and will grow like crazy once it heats up, but the peas may have got too far ahead of it by then.

We have fairly high fertility on most of our farm (hog barn was built in '95.... there has been no shortage of fertility in the last 5 years) and BFT works fine. It really shines where it's too wet for the alfalfa to persist. Where we have good natural drainage we have alfalfa that has lasted 10+ years in rotational grazing. It isn't as thick as it was when established, but it's still a noticeable part of the mix, and helps keep thick tap roots into our clay sub-soil and keeps things open. Nothing out-performs it during a drought, that is for sure.

We have started to stockpile graze into November and December every year. Those fields do a great job of setting seed on the BFT and clovers that are there. The cows stomping seed in seems to help get forages thickened up.... and the grass grows like crazy the next spring. I think we are letting the legumes gather up a lot of N, and then grazing it late frees it up for the next spring and gives the grasses a big boost.

 

[Stocker Steve]

What grasses do you like in a BFT mix?

 

[Aaron]

Our grasses peter out and eventually the ole reliable trefoil and volunteer red clover take over completely. But when seeding down, we threw in timothy, meadow brome and millet.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Our grasses peter out and eventually the ole reliable trefoil and volunteer red clover take over completely. But when seeding down, we threw in timothy, meadow brome and millet.

What soil test or management causes grasses to peter out?

 

[1982vett]

Our grasses peter out and eventually the ole reliable trefoil and volunteer red clover take over completely. But when seeding down, we threw in timothy, meadow brome and millet.

What soil test or management causes grasses to peter out?

Probably a change of season and or lack of moisture.... :lol:

 

[Aaron]

Our grasses peter out and eventually the ole reliable trefoil and volunteer red clover take over completely. But when seeding down, we threw in timothy, meadow brome and millet.

What soil test or management causes grasses to peter out?

Lack of nitrogen. In a conventional tillage situation, we seeded down to alfalfa, brome, timothy, trefoil and a cover crop of millet with an initial generous supply of NPK. The millet did well that first year, the alfalfa and brome lasted for 3-5 years, the timothy another couple and what is left after 10 years is a crop of trefoil, volunteer red clover and some timothy.

If we were to apply nitrogen in an attempt to bring back timothy and brome, we would kill off our trefoil. And trefoil is the only reason we have hay every year, even in the drought years. We have sold hay, but never bought. Many people have asked us how we manage to have enough hay every year. The answer is simple, trefoil.

I said when I started bale-grazing that I wanted to be free of commercial fertilizer in 5 years. This is year 2. We spent at least 3-4k in fertilizer each year over 200 acres of hay. I cut that down to 2k in 2009 and $0 in 2010. I don't know if I will buy any fertilizer this year or not.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Our grasses peter out and eventually the ole reliable trefoil and volunteer red clover take over completely. But when seeding down, we threw in timothy, meadow brome and millet.

What soil test or management causes grasses to peter out?

Lack of nitrogen. In a conventional tillage situation, we seeded down to alfalfa, brome, timothy, trefoil and a cover crop of millet with an initial generous supply of NPK. The millet did well that first year, the alfalfa and brome lasted for 3-5 years, the timothy another couple and what is left after 10 years is a crop of trefoil, volunteer red clover and some timothy.

If we were to apply nitrogen in an attempt to bring back timothy and brome, we would kill off our trefoil. And trefoil is the only reason we have hay every year, even in the drought years. We have sold hay, but never bought. Many people have asked us how we manage to have enough hay every year. The answer is simple, trefoil.

I said when I started bale-grazing that I wanted to be free of commercial fertilizer in 5 years. This is year 2. We spent at least 3-4k in fertilizer each year over 200 acres of hay. I cut that down to 2k in 2009 and $0 in 2010. I don't know if I will buy any fertilizer this year or not.

N is up and $3-4 K will not buy much... I fertilized N & S onto 25 acres last week ago during a snow squall, and the rest will do without commerical fertilizer.
I have a lot of manure from bought in hay :cowboy: that will cover about half the acreage, but I do not believe that a no input operation is the most profitable. My back up plan is foliar feeding.
It seems odd that fertilizer will kill off BFT. What is your application rate?

 

[Aaron]

I was quoting a blended price. Not straight N. No way on earth would I ever buy straight N.

A penny saved is a penny earned. Has always been the rule for us that if you don't have enough hay, you sell cows rather than adding a new expense onto a calf crop that isn't even born yet. Let other people buy hay if they can pencil it. But then again, they usually feed the cows with a steady paycheck.

I am referencing a neighbor who almost destroyed his entire field of trefoil with N. Can't remember the application rate, but maybe 50 lbs of N to the acre? It was years ago and I honestly don't remember. It could have been even 20 lbs.