Pasture and Forage Minute: Optimizing Summer Forages

By Jerry Volesky and Todd Whitney

Grazing Summer Annual Forages

Summer annual forages such as sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids and pearl millet planted this spring soon could be ready to graze. There are some grazing guidelines to help avoid potential hazards.

The first guideline is to never turn hungry animals into sudangrass or sorghum-type pastures, as they may eat so rapidly that they could get a quick overdose of prussic acid and die. All sudangrass and sorghum-type hybrids can produce a compound called prussic acid that is potentially poisonous. Prussic acid, or cyanide, is nothing to fear, as long as you use a few precautions to avoid problems.

The highest concentration of prussic acid is in new young shoots, so let your grass get a little growth on it before grazing to help dilute out the prussic acid. Let sudangrass get 15 to 18 inches tall before grazing. Sorghum-sudan hybrids usually have a little more prussic acid risk, so wait until they are 18 to 24 inches tall.

Pearl millet does not contain prussic acid, so if you planted millet these grazing precautions aren’t needed. Pearl millet can be grazed when it reaches 12 to 15 inches tall.

Summer annual grasses respond best to a simple, rotational grazing system. Divide fields into three or more smaller paddocks of a size that your animals can graze down to about eight or so inches of leafy stubble within seven to 10 days. Repeat this procedure with all paddocks. If grass in some paddocks gets too tall, it could be cut for hay.