What are you planting this year

[HAY MAKER]

This drought has me leery of high dollar seed,Im thinking about millet I guess Pearl would give the best bang for the dollar,bout the best drought tolerate I know of.
good luck

 

[1982vett]

Well, I still have the soybean, pearl millet, and cowpea seed I bought last May and never got to experiment with so it is a given that it will be used if it decided it wants to rain. That will plant about 10 acres. Will probably plant some or all of the remaining 40 acres in (tried and proven) haygrazer and pour on the fertilizer when signs of sufficient rainfall returns in hopes of one good cutting then use it for grazing. This won't be a year to try new things, will have to do what I know will work when and if it rains.

 

[Jogeephus]

I'll be going with millet again. Tried some sorghum sudan last year and I didn't like it. Two of the fancy high breeds I had didn't like it either. I'm sure the buzzards are hoping I'll plant it again or at least buy some more fancys.

 

[hayray]

Italian ryegrass with medium red which worked real well for me on some ground last spring after a turnip rotation from the previous fall. I did sorghum sudan last year and was not impressed with the few grazing days I got but I did short it on N and I guess it did do pretty decent growth. But I think the main problem with it was the really high dry matter so intake was excepionally high, I planted the Garst hay and graze, even up here in Michigan I would have been able to bale it no problem. We also had a bad drought and then real cold temps late summer and fall and the turnips basically did not grow, big change from last year. I also had some forage rape in on a 5 acre piece and got 3 grazing off of it but conditions just were not good so I think I should have just not waisted the time and money. I am thinking of just not tearing up anymore ground for summer annuals but rather am going to put my resources into fertilizer and leasing some more property.

 

[donnaIL]

Have some hybrid sorghum sudan (Forage First Greantreat Dynamo), we bought last year...but because it was so wet we never got it planted, and because it rained so much everything else grew like crazy. Plan to mix some med red clover with fertilizer next month and spread over the hayfields & pasture. Also thinking about trying some pearl millet. I am trying to find a good perennial warm season grass that will survive/perform in our zone.

 

[Douglas]

^ Do you have good result sowing the clover in with the fertilizer? Do you inoculate the clover and are you using a lot of nitrogen?

 

[hayray]

^ Do you have good result sowing the clover in with the fertilizer? Do you inoculate the clover and are you using a lot of nitrogen?

My red clover that I broadcasted last year mixed with the Italian ryegrass was mixed with a triple 19 and the seed was pre-innoculated. If I am planting into sod I do not broadcast but instead no-till, get alot more bang for your buck that way.

 

[Toby L.]

I don't know about all that fancy stuff that you guys are talking about, different climates maybe. I'm going oldschool and planting timothy and clover, with oat's for a cover crop. After the first and only cutting on some others fields, I've been thinking of working them up and putting something else in them, not sure what yet though, maybe some alfalfa, depends on the soil tests and the difficulty getting the p.h. right.

 

[bandit80]

I tried the Pearl Millet for the first time last year, and really liked it. Like it better than the sudangrass, as you don't have to worry about prussic acid poisoning.

 

[jnettesh]

HayRay,

I was thinking of doing some italian ryegrass and red clover on some ground this spring that has been in row crops for almost the last decade. Its mostly sandy loam soil. Just wondering if you grazed it or made haylage out of it. How productive was it? I was thinking of running some of my feeders on it.

Im in southern Wisconsin, probably similar climate to you in southern Michigan. Curious how long of production you got out that mix last year.

thanks

 

[donnaIL]

^ Do you have good result sowing the clover in with the fertilizer? Do you inoculate the clover and are you using a lot of nitrogen?

We have very good results, the clover actually takes over when the cool season grass slows down. We do use nitrogen last spring we put 1200lbs of Ammonium Nitrate 33-0-0,we added an equal amount of pelletize lime (basically because it was a small amount in the spreader and its the cheapest stuff they sell) and 120lbs of boron with 200lbs of med redclover seed(I believe it was inoculated), spread it over approx 25 acres (half went over winter wheat we had planted the rest over our grass field). Was the first year we used the boron---I'd read somewhere it could help germination in our area.

 

[hayray]

HayRay,

I was thinking of doing some italian ryegrass and red clover on some ground this spring that has been in row crops for almost the last decade. Its mostly sandy loam soil. Just wondering if you grazed it or made haylage out of it. How productive was it? I was thinking of running some of my feeders on it.

Im in southern Wisconsin, probably similar climate to you in southern Michigan. Curious how long of production you got out that mix last year.

thanks

Thats what I did is run feeders on it. I strip grazed it in narrow strips and got three grazings from July 1st through the first of November and part of it I baled and got two cuttings. Was real aggressive once it got growing, took a month for it to even grow because we were real dry, but once it did was impressive. Alot more grazing days than the sorghum/sudangrass.