Dixieangus
Well-known member
what are your experiences with this? How quick does it germinate and grow and its qualities for grazing
johnson grass
- Thread starter Dixieangus
- Start date
Help Support CattleToday:
baleflipper
Well-known member
plant 4 rows of cotton,fight johnson grass hard as can,field be solid in two weeks!
Johnson grass was imported by contractors to feed draft animals used to build trans continental rail road. came from Africa,called it " sudan grass".
It comes back from roots as well as seeds.Seed can lie in the ground for twenty years and still come up if right conditions arise.
Good grass most of the time, Cattle will kill it in long run by not letting it seed and tramping the ground until rhyzomes come to surface.
Johnson grass was imported by contractors to feed draft animals used to build trans continental rail road. came from Africa,called it " sudan grass".
It comes back from roots as well as seeds.Seed can lie in the ground for twenty years and still come up if right conditions arise.
Good grass most of the time, Cattle will kill it in long run by not letting it seed and tramping the ground until rhyzomes come to surface.
Dixieangus
Well-known member
but if you used rotational grazing would that help?
slick4591
Well-known member
Doesn't it produce Prussic Acid when it starts turning brown?
hillrancher
Well-known member
Comes from roots and seed. Johnson grass will not survive grazing it kills it.
baleflipper
Well-known member
It can produce prussic acid . It is a fair grazing grass but in colder areas wont come back unless ground is plowed in spring.
freeze kills roots. The seed heads make in 3 stages,Each stage has a different thicknes of a coating. This makes it come up in three yr increments. It is a cheap grass . There are better things to plant.If you plan on planting every year plant a sorgham /sudan cross.You will get more grazing or hay. Some here harvest the seeds for planting. It is considered a pest by grain farmers and cotton farmers.
freeze kills roots. The seed heads make in 3 stages,Each stage has a different thicknes of a coating. This makes it come up in three yr increments. It is a cheap grass . There are better things to plant.If you plan on planting every year plant a sorgham /sudan cross.You will get more grazing or hay. Some here harvest the seeds for planting. It is considered a pest by grain farmers and cotton farmers.
stocky
Well-known member
Johnsongrass makes outstanding hay and alot of it. Here, in sw Mo. you can get your regular fescue first cutting, then get 2 and sometimes 3 johnsongrass cuttings. It has high food value and the cattle love it. Just cut it before it make the seed head, so there are no wasted stalks. It can make excellent grazing, but the problem is you cannot have enough cattle on it to keep up with it, or they will eat it into the ground and kill it out. The problem with rotational grazing is there are times the johnsongrass has prussic acid and is poisonous to cattle and will kill them. This does not happen if they are already eating it. It can happen when you first turn in on it and there is no way to predict whether it is poison or not. I usually turn in after a rain and have not lost an animal on it in many years. However, the more times you turn in on it, the more chances of hitting a poisonous time. Once it is cut for hay, the prussic acid goes away and it is not poisonous. I have fed many thousand round bales of johnsongrass and have never had a problem. I have, however, had a cow get out in mid-summer and eat a bite of johnsongrass along the road and fall over dead. You can feed some johnsongrass hay that has gone to seed and it will seed a field and will get thicker with the spreading of the roots. It is warm season, so it really starts growing after you take your first cutting of fescue off. Great feed if properly managed, but must be managed right for the food value and the safety of your cows.
Dixieangus
Well-known member
So where can you get the seed stocky?
stocky
Well-known member
Dixie, Like Dun said, it is a noxious weed in Mo and seed cannot be sold. I do not know about other states. It grows wild along the roads and in good soil. The way people I know get it is by feeding the hay that has gone to seed. It will also grow everywhere you do not want it, like in the garden, LOL. Years ago, I know a guy who got seed in Arkansas, but I do not know if it was legally sold, or if a friend just harvested seed for him. Other people on the board would know whether or not it is legal in each of their states. Sorry I am not much help on the seed.
Dixieangus
Well-known member
so basically its good for hay and not really worth the risk to graze. But a question, if there is johnson grass in a pasture cattle are still at risk?
Why would you want anything in your pasture that has the potential to harm, much less kill, your cattle?
Just askin'...
Just askin'...
chippie
Well-known member
Dixieangus
Well-known member
TennesseeTuxedo":14lzvtx9 said:
I was just looking in to it, but if managed correctly can be a good forage. Lots of things in a pasture have the POTENTIAL to be harmful.
How many of you are feeding or growing Johnson grass?
chippie
Well-known member
Not us. It gets poisoned, pulled and dug up at our place.
Somehow it got started in our garden. It's been heck trying to get rid of it.
Somehow it got started in our garden. It's been heck trying to get rid of it.
backhoeboogie
Well-known member
TennesseeTuxedo":3gub1676 said:
It is pretty much impossible for me. When I change pastures, that is the first thing that dissappears. Seed gets blown in it seems. The cows wipe it out.
Angus Cowman
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2008
- Messages
- 7,157
- Reaction score
- 5
I amTennesseeTuxedo":1wc7629y said:
I have several hundred acres of it in the summer on hayfields that comes on strong after the first cutting and in the fall and winter I graze it along with the stockpiled fescue
I am like Stocky I love it
you just have to manage it
one of the main things I have learned is you are better off to fertilize in the fall and it makes the chance of nitrate poisoning alot less
too answer your other ? You could consider fescue toxic also
so without fescue and johnson grass I would be hard pressed to run any cattle
High Cotton
Well-known member
I'm interested in it also. It seems like a decent alternative to Bermuda grass. I'm looking for something to fill the void of fescue during the summer months when fescue falls off around here. I have been looking at dallas grass also.
Lucky_P
Well-known member
It's part of the sward here, and I wish I had more. It's the first thing the cows eat when they come into a new paddock - order of preference: Johnsongrass->crabgrass->fescue->various weeds and clover->orchardgrass.
Continuous grazing will kill it out, but it hangs in there nicely in our rotational grazing program - cows don't come back into a previously-grazed paddock in less than 20 days, sometimes as long as 60 days between passes.
Prussic acid is primarily only a concern to me if the JG has been damaged - hail, blow-down, frost; and it dissipates after a few days.
If you put out N fertilizer, nitrate accumulation can be a problem with drought-stressed JG.
Continuous grazing will kill it out, but it hangs in there nicely in our rotational grazing program - cows don't come back into a previously-grazed paddock in less than 20 days, sometimes as long as 60 days between passes.
Prussic acid is primarily only a concern to me if the JG has been damaged - hail, blow-down, frost; and it dissipates after a few days.
If you put out N fertilizer, nitrate accumulation can be a problem with drought-stressed JG.
