Seeding rape

[Jogeephus]

What does this Pasja Brassica run $$$$ ? Most of this seed is expensive, do these plantings help offset your hay consumption? Is that where the savings come in? Unless I've calculated something wrong (which is entirely possible), the costs of planting anything in the winter/spring is more than I could just buy hay for. What am I missing?

The rape I planted cost $1.00/lb. I used 4.5 lbs an acre so it came to $4.50 per acre. On top of that I put 1 bushel of rye but I can't tell you what it was worth. But then you got to figure the fertilizer so you are looking at $100/acre if you put out your basics as well as nitrogen. This equates to $12.50 per ton for some excellent feed. But you got to be careful with your utilization otherwise they will waste it. Because of this, I don't winter cows on it as I'm not trying to grow them only maintain them and, like you say, I can do this much cheaper and reliable with feed quality hay. I will use this on heifers or young growing stock but not on cows. I do however think if I used limit/strip grazing with a poly wire this would work on cows effectively but I don't see the point in my situation as I normally have surplus hay.