Air October 24, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. I may be speaking selfishly here, but I hope that we get a good hard freeze sometime soon. It would solve a few developing problems and help us move on into November. But, that’s just my opinion. And while we’re on the subject of weather, I’m not sure where all those folks are getting the gloom and doom that it is going to be a winter as bad as last year. I’m looking at the same map that they all are, and I see Kansas being smack in the middle of normal winter weather expected halfway between colder and warmer than normal. If anything, we might see a slightly wetter than normal winter. But, I guess we’ll just wait a month and see what the next forecast round comes up with.

For those of you who use small grains, such as wheat, rye or triticale for cattle forage, there’s a field day coming up out at Hays on November 8th that would be well worth your drive out there. It runs from 10:30 to noon and is followed with a free lunch. I’m seriously thinking about going, so if you’re interested, give me a call. Which leads us into fall grazing of wheat. We have an excellent opportunity this year to get some fall grazing of wheat. We were able to get fields planted in a timely fashion, the wheat came up when it should and it looks like fields are firming up nicely. Now, you don’t want to be in too big of a hurry to turn cattle out onto that wheat. You want to make sure that first of all there is enough growth for the cattle to actually graze on. Then you want to make sure that there is a good enough root system under the plants to hold them in the ground so the cattle don’t rip the plants out of the ground. Our general rule of thumb is to have fairly uniform growth across the field that’s 4 to 8 inches tall. Before you turn cattle out, go out and tug on a few plants and see how well rooted they are. If the plants have a good crown and a good set of primary and secondary roots, and good above ground growth, including one or two tillers already, turn the cattle out. Keep in mind that 30 or 40 pounds of extra nitrogen may be needed to maximize both forage and grain yield. You could apply that before turning the cattle out and then follow up with normal top dressing in late winter. This is a good forage resource and given the short hay supply, I’d sure put some wheat forage to work this fall!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2001.

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