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West Central Illinois | Trying to play around with some #s to take small patches <5 acres out of crop production. Soil's a little below average compared to rest of the tillable on this place, 140 bu corn & 50 bu soybean type ground. I'm getting very well-versed in managed rotational grazing been doing it about 5 years or so, I like the idea of some diversification to my forage for the summer slump in fescue production and the early spring when our pastures aren't ready to graze yet. Goal isn't necessarily to add additional cow/calf pairs but to decrease winter hay feeding by resting my perennial pastures more and growing more stockpiled fescue to graze in the winter. I have about 18 portable reels of polywire and plenty of step-in posts so moving cattle and strip grazing is what i'd be looking at.
Has anybody drilled cereal rye in the fall, grazed it in late march through april then terminated the rye and came back and planted another annual forage crop (like sorghumxsudangrass) instead of a row crop? Would want to graze the sorghum sudangrass in July/August and maybe a 2nd pass on it before frost. Is there anything to consider? Is this practice repeatable year to year or should one mix up the varieties of annual forage crop year to year like planting radishes/brassicas/oats for a summer crop some years instead of the sorghum sudan? In my #s i'm trying to pencil it to generate enough value by displacing hay i would have fed in the winter in enough value to compete with what corn/bean yields would be on these patches. | |
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Alternative to Rowcrop on Small Fields - Rye/Sudangrass
