This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. With the rain we've recently experienced, traditional livestock forage choices may be minimized this year. Alfalfa production and definitely alfalfa quality is going to be down, because of early weevil infestation and the rain. Bromegrass production is going to be down, and quality too as the rains have prevented timely harvesting. Which reminds me, you'd better get that bromegrass harvested as soon as possible now. Bluestem prairie made good growth last year simply because we had early season rains and a build up of nitrogen due to low utilization the several years previous because of low rainfall. That nitrogen got used up last year and this year's production will be less. So how do you make up the difference? There are numerous summer annual forages or non-traditional forages that I will be addressing in coming days. Some of these are very familiar to many of you, such as forage sorghum and sudan grass and some of the hybrids. Others may be a little unusual such as crabgrass or turnips. But they all have potential uses IF you approach them properly. However, the first step is to map out what your forage needs. That means how many head of what kind of livestock. What is their current growth stage or life stage - yearling steers, bred heifers, nursing beef cows, pregnant beef cows approaching their last trimester or just what. Then what are their forage needs as matched to currently available forage resources. What happens if the rest of the summer is hot and dry and the pastures stop growing. Do you have enough reserve or are they going to start taking those pastures backwards. After you have all of these needs and resources, you put those together, like a simple math formula, and see where you have surpluses and deficits and that dictates additional forage needs. Meeting those needs will be our next discussion. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. When we start thinking of alternative or summer annual forages, the first thing that many producers think about is forage sorghum or sudangrass. These are plants that we are familiar with, know where to find the seed and understand the production of them. There certainly still is time to get these in the ground this year, in fact the timing could be very good given the abundant soil moisture right now. Many of these are even short enough season crops that we can double crop them in on wheat stubble after harvest with very little effort - naturally dependent on what wheat herbicide you used. In many cases you can even graze them down in mid to late summer or bale them off in early September and have plenty of time to spray the regrowth to kill it and then follow up with wheat planting in early October. Right in with the sorghums we can consider pearl millet at the same time. Millet may not be nearly as familiar to many of you as the sorghums, but you can treat it very similarly to the sorghums. One of the advantages to pearl millet is that it has no prussic acid or cyanide poisoning risk. Any of these plants could have nitrate risks, but we can manage around many of those. It will normally take 4 to 6 weeks after planting to have livestock available forage, so take this into consideration when determining when to seed. If you are planting in rows, plant forage sorghum at 4 to 6 pounds per acre. If drilling, pearl millet and forage sorghum should go in at 10 to 20 pounds per acre and sudangrass or sorghum sudan hybrids should be planted at 20 to 25 pounds per acre. You will want to fertilize to insure good growth, somewhere around 30 to 40 pounds of N per acre. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. When we talk about summer annual forages or nontraditional forages, crabgrass is probably NOT one that comes to mind. But maybe it should be. Crabgrass is actually native to Africa but was introduced to the United States in 1849 as a forage for draft animals. While we would normally want to get crabgrass planted in early May, this is one that we could get in during the next few days to serve as an emergency late summer forage. Believe it or not, there are forage varieties of crabgrass available in the seed trade. Red River crabgrass is the most common one that you will come across and is well adapted to Kansas. Three to four pounds of seed per acre is about all that is needed. This can be drilled or broadcast and harrowed in -use a higher rate if broadcasting. Crabgrass, like bermudagrass, will respond very favorably to nitrogen fertilization, producing as much as 25 pounds of forage per pound of nitrogen applied. Most producers will apply 50 pounds of N, plus phosphorus as indicated from the soil test, at planting time and then about another 50 pounds after about 6 weeks. Once crabgrass gets about 8 inches tall it can be grazed. Quality of crabgrass is very high, especially if it is kept fertilized and actively growing. Protein can range from 22% in early summer to 15% in mid summer. If you hit a dry spell in late summer the protein may drop to 10%, which is still superior to brome or native prairie in the same time frame. The nice thing about crabgrass is that once it is well established, it will naturally reseed itself for the next year. If you want, you can pull the cattle off in early September, drill a cereal grain into it and start grazing again in mid to late October. You can continue to graze the spring growth and by the time the cereal grain has been grazed out you can lightly disk the field and along comes the crabgrass. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. One non traditional forage that has seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years is turnips. Now you have to be a little careful with turnips in regards to government farm programs. Spend time talking with the folks at the FSA office before you even buy any turnip seed to make sure you won't have a problem. Turnips are a fall and early winter forage crop that comes on strong and fast. The tops can have 17 to 22% protein and the roots can be 12 to 15% protein. Turnips are 80 to 90% digestible, but are also 80 to 90% water so will need to be supplemented with some good quality hay. For best results, turnips need to be planted in late July through mid May. They are normally drilled in 6 to 8 inch rows at about 2.5 to 3 pounds per acre and just deep enough to cover the seed. Some producers have even aerially sown the seed into standing corn or grain sorghum and then grazed the crop residue and the turnips at the same time. So about 3.5 pounds of seed per acre if you broadcast them in any form. Surprisingly, one of the better varities for livestock forage is Purple Top which is a variety that has been grown in gardens for years and is readily available. It will probably take about 70 to 80 days to get the turnips well enough established for them to be grazed. If you have cattle that haven't eaten turnips before, it may take a while for them to figure it out, but once they do, look out, there's no stopping them! Turnips will grow until we have extended temperatures below 18 degrees. At this time the tops will turn black and that'll be the end of the top grazing, but as long as the roots aren't frozen, the cattle will continue to feed on them. Some producers will even run a field cultivator through at this time to lift the roots to the surface which ensures almost 100% utilization by the cattle! This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. One forage production practice that is rarely done in these parts is annual alfalfa. Now the only difference between traditional alfalfa production and annual alfalfa production is that you intentionally kill the alfalfa at the end of the growing season. Of course, you won't want to use some of the high dollar alfalfa varieties for this practice, but there never seems to be a shortage of low cost alfalfa seed. A late summer planting will probably be best - plant more seed than normal, 20 to 25 pound per acre, to compensate for lower quality seed. Use a seed innoculant and fertilize will with phosphorus as indicated by a soil test. One advantage of using alfalfa as a single year crop is that you will normally get a lot better nitrogen yield following the crop for the next crop. Too often we let the alfalfa field go a few years too long and the weeds and grass suck up all the nitrogen that would have been available for the crop. Since you aren't worried about storing up food reserves for winter, you can often get an extra cutting. You can spray it with herbicides to kill it and plant wheat in the fall, let the last cutting stand and graze it through the late fall and then kill it in the spring to plant a spring crop, or till it under at any time for recropping options. Nitrogen yields of 50 to 60 pounds per acre after one year of alfalfa growth are not unexpected. You still will have to be on the lookout for alfalfa weevils and other insect pests, but diseases are rarely a problem. The biggest caveat is seed bed preparation and seedling establishment. You may find that leaving wheat stubble alone and then spraying with roundup about a week before notill drilling in mid August will be very successful. A new twist to an old crop, but something to consider if looking for forage options. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Return to Radio Home Page

Return to Ag Home Page