growing NWSG in mid south

[Red Bull Breeder]

If its to deep it will take a while. Planted some one time just got it rolled down came a real hard rain was the next year before it came up.

 

[pdfangus]

I have not planted any despite being encouraged to do so by many....
But where we are, the common bermuda locally called wire grass, is very growthy and it has saved my butt a couple of times. I understand that it may not be as leafy....but when it is hot and dry the cattle eat it...and when allowed to get thick it makes a good mat and gets leafier rather than stemmier. After talking with one of our extension forage specialist who researches a lot of warm season grasses he encouraged me to just manage better for the dominant species in each paddock and I would probably be as well off as reseeding...he said he saw a lot of potential in some of the local common bermudas....With seed at nine and ten bucks per lb last time I priced it, I didn't take a lot of that knid of encouragement to just keep marching to my own drum.... I have bermuda that is over knee deep in spots and it takes a good man to walk thru it.....fields not grazed for an extended period in the summer get a rank stand of Common bermuda. With the dry weather last year I worried some about it taking over the fescue but when it rained the fescue came back....But we have some fields that are about half and half now.

 

[Redhides]

You might have luck on more total forage by carving out about 10% of your land and planting summer annuals into it. We've had good luck drilling pearl or brown top millet into close grazed fescue. Maybe even sorghum sudan. I have a buddy that runs an all grass dairy and he mob grazes about 250,000lbs to the acre last year across it, and it'll grow back 2-3 times over 90 days if you get the rain. Now he plows and plants and has about $150 per acre in the crop. He does the same thing on the same ground for a rye/ryegrass/oats mix in the winter. The fellow's 50 acres will sustain 250 cows in the middle of summer and in the up curve of their lactation cycle. He rolls them across it over about 90 days. It' costs the same as putting two tons of litter on 100 acres a Bermuda and you don't get near the production or forage quality. Not to mention 90% of your land is resting in the hottest part of the year. That may not be as big of a deal in TN/VA/MO/or the Carolinas, but it sure makes a big difference in the deep dirty south. And you've go to be set up for the grazing intensity.

 

[pdfangus]

You might have luck on more total forage by carving out about 10% of your land and planting summer annuals into it. We've had good luck drilling pearl or brown top millet into close grazed fescue. Maybe even sorghum sudan. I have a buddy that runs an all grass dairy and he mob grazes about 250,000lbs to the acre last year across it, and it'll grow back 2-3 times over 90 days if you get the rain. Now he plows and plants and has about $150 per acre in the crop. He does the same thing on the same ground for a rye/ryegrass/oats mix in the winter. The fellow's 50 acres will sustain 250 cows in the middle of summer and in the up curve of their lactation cycle. He rolls them across it over about 90 days. It' costs the same as putting two tons of litter on 100 acres a Bermuda and you don't get near the production or forage quality. Not to mention 90% of your land is resting in the hottest part of the year. That may not be as big of a deal in TN/VA/MO/or the Carolinas, but it sure makes a big difference in the deep dirty south. And you've go to be set up for the grazing intensity.

We don't get quite as hot as Georgia....I spent a couple years down there one summer....but I don't think we get as much rain either...

Funny story...when I was working the Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort AP Hill in 2005.....it was hot and humid ... brutal....I was sweating like a lady of ill repute in church....I was in charge of ten folks at our merit badge booth and we were teaching kids as fast as we could put em thru the courses. I was scurrying around from one station to another....

noticed one guy resting and wiping his head with a towel and watching me....he was with a kid being taught....
Finally he says to me...."I don't know how you do it."
I say "do What?"
he says "keep going at that pace in this weather"
I say "it's got to be done and I am the guy who is responsible for getting it done."
he says " I thought it was hot at home but it is absolutley miserable here."
I say " where is home?"
he says "Georgia"
I laughed and said "I been to Georgia...it is hotter there but you have to come here to really enjoy the heat and the humidity"

 

[Redhides]

I'm almost hesitant to say it, but this has been the mildest start to a summer I can remember. We've had about 6 hours of 90 degree weather and it's almost July. That's unheard of. The rain helps a lot. It's humid as rip, but ability to still have night time temps in the 60's really seems to have a positive effect on kicking that 100 degree/90% humidity can further down the road.

If we get rain, we can flat grow some grass. And that's with 200 years of just hammering the ground with Cotton. Most of the topsoil around here is in the Gulf. But you can build it back and in time, and when you do you'll have some pretty decent rangeland. It's just been so long since we had our historical average of 50" to 60" in annual rainfall, many have forgotten how green this part of the world should be in the Summer.

Lived in Virginia for several years....it's not cool in the summer.