By Paul Beck
Drought has impacted pasture forage production and hay yields across the region. Many producers are faced with the choice between selling cows now or feeding up their already limited hay supply early. Late last week areas across North Texas, Northern Oklahoma and into Kansas and the Mid-South got nice rains which can rejuvenate drought-stricken pastures and provide some relief from pressure to start feeding hay. This rain also provides the opportunity to plant warm-season annuals into crop fields for fall pasture.
Warm-season annuals are often thought of as emergency grazing and hay crops when late spring and early summer hay harvests are lacking. Annual forage crops such as millets, sudangrass and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids or legumes like cow peas or mung beans are usually planted in the late spring or early summer for mid to late summer harvest. Recent research has investigated using annual forages in novel ways to further extend grazing seasons. In the Southeast and Southern Great Plains, late summer plantings of warm-season annuals have been used to fill the gaps in fall forage production.
Annual grasses including sorghum/sudangrass, Pearl millet, browntop millet, and corn were planted in late August of 2018, when these were harvested in October 42 days later yields ranged from 2,500 pounds of dry matter per acre for browntop millet and a VNS corn to over 3,300 pounds of dry matter per acre for sorghum/sudangrass, Pearl millet, and a brown midrib grazing corn variety.