Late Season Summer Annual

[rockroadseminole]

For my fellow southern climate guys:

I'm on the GA/FL line, and it is usually hot well into November and sometimes Santa wears shorts and flip flops. Has anyone in a similar climate ever tried spreading millet/crabgrass/something right after shelling corn and cut it in? I'm thinking I could get 60-100 quality days of grazing on an irrigated field or two.

Heard a hay man talking about doing this with millet and cutting hay. I was thinking about running my steers out a little longer.

 

[wbvs58]

Why not just plant a winter cereal like oats, barley, rye. triticale?

Ken

 

[M-5]

Rockroad , . They should be start cutting corn here(just across the River) in next few weeks so it's too early for any rye oats or trit you could get good fall crop of millet if your planning on awinter crop you only have about 60 days to get something out of it.

 

[rockroadseminole]

We normally don't plant winter grazing until December because of the heat. Thinking we could get a couple months out of it. There are a few folks cutting corn here now. Ours is two weeks out.

 

[Ebenezer]

Bin run corn, a bushel plus per acre, some brown top millet and a couple of pounds of turnips with a tad of heat resistance if you can find that. Would be cheap enough and you could add a few soybeans to boost protein unless the residual herbicides would hurt brassicas and beans.

 

[Nesikep]

I just seeded a field yesterday, I knew second cut wasn't going to be worth much, sowed perennial ryegrass and crimson clover, I broadcast seeded, and to be able to have a little more volume I put about 10lb/ac of oats and 10 lb/ac of fall rye... going to see how it turns out, I should have a good 60-80 days of growth which will give me some nice fall pasture, next spring I'll disc it up and put my usual hay mix into it

 

[ClinchValley]

I just seeded a field yesterday, I knew second cut wasn't going to be worth much, sowed perennial ryegrass and crimson clover, I broadcast seeded, and to be able to have a little more volume I put about 10lb/ac of oats and 10 lb/ac of fall rye... going to see how it turns out, I should have a good 60-80 days of growth which will give me some nice fall pasture, next spring I'll disc it up and put my usual hay mix into it

Did you do this on top of a freshly harvested field? Or…

 

[Nesikep]

I cut the first cut, then plowed, disked and ran the cultipacker over it a couple times.
The crimson clover is stunningly quick to sprout.. 8 hours after it has water it's got a germ poking out.. I expect it to have cotyledons on it in the next day or two

 

[rockroadseminole]

It really is amazing how quickly that clover comes up. We have our no-till drill rigged up where we put the rye/oats/wheat in at about an inch and the clover comes out of the small seed box with the hoses unhooked. Just runs out on the ground and comes up in just a few days.

M5, with all this rain we're getting we might not shell corn before Thanksgiving! Not complaining, but... it's wet

 

[M-5]

Yep , it builds over on y'all and crosses river at desser . It's gonna dry up pretty soon tho.

 

[jdg]

I'm an hour north of the FL line in GA, so our corn harvest will start in about 7-10 days. My neighbor asked me this same question yesterday...about what to do after corn. I told him the amount of corn regrowth and summer grass and broadleaf "weeds" (including crabgrass sometimes) that will come up in our fields around a month after harvest is usually as good as what you might plant, without a single pass. You just have to be patient to give it time to produce the tonnage. The pearl millet i've planted this late typically tries to head about the time you are ready to graze. The crabgrass might provide you with a longer season, and if you want crabgrass seed in the sward, it is probably a net win. I haven't tried it yet, but i think the brassicas might fit best for this time of year. Just like the crabgrass seed though, most do not want to be deeper than a 1/2", and planting depth in heavy residue can be a little tricky. I'm a big fan of T-raptor (rape/turnip hybrid), for it's quality, regrowth, and vigor...so I might try it with some other brassicas this year....but mostly i'll just stockpile the seed bank that's out there for late september, early october grazing. Here I wait until the 3rd week of September typically to start planting my Spring Oat/ T-raptor fall mix...shooting for a mid-November first graze.