What would you do with it?

[redcowsrule33]

We have a 5 acre "pasture" that we use as our wintering area. We have planted it to sorghum-sudan in the summer but I don't like having to wait as long as I do to turn them out in the late fall as it seems like we never get a good killing frost soon enough and worry about poisoning. Anyway, the last 4 years it has either been too wet to get into in time to plant anything or too dry and we need to use the area to feed hay. Suffice it to say there will be no need for fertilizer out there. We have planned for the last 3 years to plant millet and was considering it for this year but with the concern for nitrates that has been expressed I wonder if I might not be in for trouble with the amount of manure. Haying millet is not an option as it would never dry in our climate (we have a hard time drying hay lately) and would have to hire out someone to put it up as silage. I really want to plant it to something annual this year if the weather cooperates. What do you think? We would be able to plant around the middle of May and we usually get our first real frost in late Sept/early Oct. Soil is silt loam (about 2') with a sand base and mostly sloped.

 

[Dave]

I have the same sort of wintering area. Every spring when the cows go to grass I either plant it to oats or annual rye grass. One time a combination of the two. I typically cut it for hay in mid to late summer and I use it to wean calves on in the fall.

 

[1wlimo]

You could try triticale, cut for hay a bit early and it should regrow better to give a bit of grazing late fall as well.

 

[nagwag]

redcows - I have a wintering area also. It is part of our rotational grazing. What I do is when I take the cows out, I disk and drag the area and then broadcast seed clover and timothy. I then broadcast oats overtop and then culipact everything. I let the cows in it the first time for just a couple of days so the weeds and oats get their tops trimmed off. The next time through the cows get to stay in normal. Works pretty good for us.

 

[kfacres]

If you are worried about soil nutrient levels- nothing beats a soil test- pretty cheap option.

Might give a check towards some forage radishes- would give you two benefits- one a good forage for cattle consumption- and two a compaction tool-- since I'm assuming that if your winter feeding area is anything like ours- at times they'll be belly deep in mud...

 

[Douglas]

Consider late planted oats. About the end of July. Will stockpile until probably early November in your area. Cheap quality forage. Strip graze like you would stockpiled fescue. You could overseed a little ryegrass to provide something May-June.

http://sheep.osu.edu/2009/07/06/oats-pl ... le-forage/