Grazing cover crops/row crops

[willow bottom]

Anyone here graze a winter/spring cover crop such as cereal rye or wheat? Looking into doing that and then doing a burn down with herbicide and planting peas or corn behind it.

 

[farmguy]

Yes, it worked very well. Planted rye after harvesting a crop of sorghum sudan for hay. Then next spring grazed the rye. SS may affect the rye in places so this year we will plant pearl millet, bale and seed back to rye. farmguy

 

[kenny thomas]

All of western Oklahoma does it. Then they either hay or combine most of it.

 

[Jogeephus]

Doesn't pencil out to well for brood cows unless you are willing to limit graze.

 

[Allenw]

It would need to be planted early for the most forage, if too late you wont get much until the next spring.

 

[Dave]

I know a guy who is a retired dirt farmer. He basically knows everyone in a big irrigated row crop area. He gets guys who raise Sweat corn for the cannery to plant triticale behind the corn. That is late August. They give the triticale one shot of water in the fall. He does IMG and gets one pass over it in the fall and two passes in the spring before the row crop guys want it back in May.

 

[jdg]

I plant about 500 acres every year in a corn/peanut summer rotation. I plant oats/T-raptor mix in front of corn, and a mix of Ryegrass/crimson/hairy vetch or Ryegrass/oats/crimson/hairy vetch in front of my peanuts. If you're afraid of winter kill on your oats, you could substitute Cereal Rye.

 

[willow bottom]

I plant about 500 acres every year in a corn/peanut summer rotation. I plant oats/T-raptor mix in front of corn, and a mix of Ryegrass/crimson/hairy vetch or Ryegrass/oats/crimson/hairy vetch in front of my peanuts. If you're afraid of winter kill on your oats, you could substitute Cereal Rye.

Good suggestions... Only negative to planting ryegrass is it becomes resistant to glyphosate. Cereal Rye on the other hand would do good

 

[Stocker Steve]

Doesn't pencil out to well for brood cows unless you are willing to limit graze.

Lots of info out there on double cropping behind winter annuals. Some folks that no till into the green only seed about a half rate. There will be some early N tie up. Following a rye mix with soybeans works much better than corn. Goggle No Till magazine.

Penciling out cover crops and annual forages is an art form. Big issues are that many will only accept year one benefits, don't get reasonable tonnage yields, and don't have the right livestock. Best gross margin per acre approach that I have been able to come up with is double cropping full season annual forage mix after a rye/radish mix. Calve cows on the rye, then creep graze calves or graze young stock on the full season.

Cheapest $$$ per acre approach is to broadcast rye with fertilizer after taking off a grain crop, but my short season makes this difficult. With zero planting cost (you were broadcasting P or K anyway), and buying rye from another farmer (wholesale seed pricing), you are looking at less than $10 an acre... Cheap feed.

Those who did not inherit 250 bu corn ground in the I states need a long term soil generation program. Magic happens when you get organic matter up over 3%. Good luck with your experiments.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I plant about 500 acres every year in a corn/peanut summer rotation. I plant oats/T-raptor mix in front of corn, and a mix of Ryegrass/crimson/hairy vetch or Ryegrass/oats/crimson/hairy vetch in front of my peanuts. If you're afraid of winter kill on your oats, you could substitute Cereal Rye.

What seeding rates work best for you ?

 

[Bigfoot]

I like to go wheat followed by SS. I got some really nice hay ground given to me last year, and I think as long as I have that, I won't be doing the wheat SS any more.

 

[BFE]

Good suggestions... Only negative to planting ryegrass is it becomes resistant to glyphosate. Cereal Rye on the other hand would do good

Generic Select is cheap. Use it instead.