Winter grazing with brassicas?

[jdg]

Anybody had success grazing turnips, mustard, kale or radish through the winter? i'm in south ga and have relied in the past on cereal rye
in a clean till row crop rotation, but was considering a cheaper alternative. Any palatability issues?
-dg

 

[Jogeephus]

Have had good luck with it except for when I planted Cleopatra. Don't know what happened with it. Had good luck with ryegrass/rape mix, oats/rape mix as well as rye/rape mix. Cows aren't fond of it at first - which is why you plant a sweeter plant with it - but once it gets a frost on it and they get a taste of it - Katie bar the door. Its best to limit feed them on it or force them somehow to take in some dry matter to firm them up but its really good feed. The rape produces a lot too. Even drilled some in a bahia grass pasture and during a drought year had rape at the first of July. I was well pleased with it. If you plan on planting millet you can stagger this planting by allowing the rape to grow longer in the year which will prevent you from having all the millet coming in at the same time.

 

[Banjo]

Have had good luck with it except for when I planted Cleopatra. Don't know what happened with it. Had good luck with ryegrass/rape mix, oats/rape mix as well as rye/rape mix. Cows aren't fond of it at first - which is why you plant a sweeter plant with it - but once it gets a frost on it and they get a taste of it - Katie bar the door. Its best to limit feed them on it or force them somehow to take in some dry matter to firm them up but its really good feed. The rape produces a lot too. Even drilled some in a bahia grass pasture and during a drought year had rape at the first of July. I was well pleased with it. If you plan on planting millet you can stagger this planting by allowing the rape to grow longer in the year which will prevent you from having all the millet coming in at the same time.

The brassicas make good feed but you don't have any regrowth do you? or do ya?

 

[Jogeephus]

With rape you do. You can rotate it just like any other forage as its not producing a root but foliage. I think it will produce somewhere around 8 tons of forage an acre with minimal inputs.

 

[Jogeephus]

I found these pictures in my files. The first picture was taken earlier in the year when the rye was heavier than the rape. For the most part they graze around the rape at this time but they get some and they get used to it.

This photo was taken just before I turned them in for the third grazing. You can see the rape is beginning to outcompete the rye. I grazed rape on this field till the very first of July then I planted the millet - and this was a drought year at that. So not bad, IMO, for $4/acre worth of seed and minimal fertilizer.

 

[ga.prime]

I mixed some rape in with my oats and ryegrass this year experimentally. Never have tried the rape before.

 

[Jogeephus]

Is it coming up yet?

If you get a stand of it I think you will like it. Lots of people have trouble getting it started. I think this is from burying it too deep. Another thing you will notice is after the cows get used to grazing it they will go to eating any wild turnip you have on your place like its candy.

 

[ga.prime]

Is it coming up yet?

Went out to see for myself after reading your post and yes it is coming up. We totally missed out on the rain this weekend. Hopefully we'll get a shower this afternoon.

 

[Jogeephus]

Looks like its off to a good start. Its like a turnip patch at first. You don't think you have much then wham you got more than you know what to do with.

 

[ga.prime]

I guess you could cook up a bunch of it with some ham hocks and take it to a church supper and call it collards.

 

[Jogeephus]

I've been meaning to try them but I never have. I imagine they would be the same.