By Jerry Volesky
Last fall and this winter have been quite dry leaving most parts of the state in some level of drought. We are a few weeks away from another growing season and who knows how much moisture lies ahead.
Drought is likely to be a problem again this summer, at least somewhere in Nebraska. Because hay can be costly when pastures are short, consider ways now to minimize damage to range and pasture if less than average rainfall is received. Fortunately, early spring is a time when actions can be taken that can minimize some of the problems caused by drought.
Use Remaining Hay
For starters, prepare a strategy for using any remaining hay. One of the better options is to feed hay longer into spring before turning cows out to permanent pasture. This action is exactly the opposite of the usual recommendation to graze more and feed less hay. But, allowing pastures to accumulate more growth before grazing begins, will provide more total grazable forage if drought prevents much regrowth later in the growing season. Leftover hay also can be used later during the growing season to give pastures more time to recover between grazing.
Plant Annual Forages
Another strategy is planting annual forages to provide additional pasture or hay. For spring or cool-season annual forages, the planting period is typically mid-March to early April, or when soil temperatures are in the 42 to 45 degree Fahrenheit range. Oats are probably the most common cool-season annual forage planted in Nebraska. However, spring triticale or spring barley are two other small grain options that have been found to perform similarly to oats in terms of forage yield and quality.
These spring annuals are similar in the number of days until they are ready to begin grazing or hay; so, the different species could be mixed at planting if desired. One could look at the seed cost of the different species before deciding on which to plant. With an early spring planting date of the cool-season annuals, grazing can typically begin around the 3rd or 4th week of May and last into early July. Haying usually takes place around the 3rd week of June. There are specific forage varieties of these different small grain species that have been selected for greater yield and specific plant characteristics such as leafiness.
If grazing is a primary goal, Italian ryegrass could be included in a mix with the cereal grains which will result in a longer grazing period. Field peas are another species that could be included to enhance forage quality for hay or silage and provide some nitrogen fixation. Research trials have shown that the field peas should be at least 25% by weight of the seed mixture to realize a significant increase in the crude protein content in the forage harvested.
Warm-season or summer annual grasses are the other group of forages that could be seeded for grazing or cut for forage. These forages require warm temperatures, and seeding can typically occur from late May through July. There are seven different types of major summer annual forage grasses. These include: sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids, forage sorghum (which we often call cane or sorgo), foxtail millet, pearl millet, Japanese millet, and teff. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. So, select the type you want based on how you plan to use it.
For example, do you want pasture? Then use sudangrass or pearl millet. Both are leafy, they regrow rapidly, and they contain less danger from prussic acid poisoning than other annual grasses. What if you want hay or green chop? Then select sorghum-sudan hybrids or pearl millet because they yield well and have good feed value when cut two or three times. On sandy soils, or when conditions are dry, foxtail millet may be a better choice for summer hay. It dries fast, doesn't regrow after cutting, and handles dry soils well. Cane hay is grown in many areas and produces high tonnage, but it’s lower in feed value and dries more slowly after cutting than the hybrids or millets. Japanese millet can either be cut for hay or grazed and is a plant that can tolerate heavy, wet soils. Choose teff if you are looking for a really soft, leafy, high quality horse hay. Perhaps the goal is to chop silage to use as a wet feed. Then select forage sorghums, especially hybrids with high grain production. They can't be beat for tonnage or for feed value when harvested as a silage crop. If the rain doesn’t come, planning and acting now to make up for forage losses from pasture due to drought will pay big dividends.
Guidelines for the establishment of annual forages can be found in the following publication:
Other resources for annual forage management include:
Source : unl.edu