By Ann Blount

Tifleaf 3 millet planted August 20 and photographed October. 3, 2014 at the NFREC Beef and Forage Field Day. Photo Credit: Doug Mayo
After a very cold and wet winter across much of the south, many of us are still reeling from low hay inventories and delayed winter forage growth. With the last few days of night temperatures above 50 0F, many of our winter pastures are exploding in growth and grazing conditions have remarkably improved. With warming spring weather most of us in the southern states have summer perennial pastures that have come out of winter dormancy. While the backbone of the southern cattle industry relies on these perennial species, some of us plant a portion of our acres in summer annuals, like millet, sorghum-sudangrass, and crabgrass. These high quality and high yielding forages give livestock, such as stockers, replacement heifers, first-calf heifers, or dairy cows, the high quality forage they need for proper growth and development.
Pearl millet, forage sorghum, sudangrass and sorghum-sudan hybrids are annual, warm-season, seeded grasses that grow quickly in the spring and summer months, and offer both high-yielding and high-quality forage. These forages require cultivated land or may be stripped or no-tilled into a winter pasture following small grains, after the forage has been grazed down. Row crop and vegetable crop producers may also use summer annual grasses in rotation with high valued crops to maintain weed control, and to prevent erosion, while provide their livestock an alternate source of grazing. Sometimes these forages are used when renovating pastures, particularly when trying to eliminate existing stands of perennial grasses. Following a thorough disking, they can planted and successfully shade out remaining bahiagrass and bermudagrass.
While these quick growing annuals offer high nutritive quality, they can present a few management concerns. Nitrate accumulation can occur in all of these grasses. Weather and crop management may contribute to the rapid accumulation of nitrates in the plant tissue. This generally occurs during periods of low rainfall or low humidity with plants heavily fertilized with nitrogen (N). When hay is cut during or just following a period of drought, nitrate levels may be elevated. Prussic acid (HCN) poisoning is not a concern in millet, however, it is with forage sorghum, sudangrass, and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids, so care should be taken with livestock consuming these forages during periods of drought or following frost.
Summer annual forages may also be used for creep grazing, green chop, haylage, silage, or hay. The large stems are often hard to dry for making hay, and a hay conditioner would best be used to hasten the drying period. Often these types of summer forages are ensiled rather than harvested for hay.
Pearl millet, forage sorghum, and sorghum-sudangrass seed is often readily available and there are some very good varieties on the market. More information on planting, management and expected yields of these crops can be found in extension publication http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag157
Performance and yield of these annual forage varieties are tested in Florida and Georgia. 2014 University of Florida trial results are found at: http://animal.ifas.ufl.edu/corn_silage_forage_field_day_extension/index.shtml.
Results for the 2014 millet and sorghum-sudangrass trials for University of Georgia’s variety testing website may be found under Summer Annual Forages: http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=AP103-6
Pearl millet varieties, include Tifleaf 3, and several other commercially available varieties, are all well adapted to much of the south. Pearl millet should not be confused with Japanese millet, browntop millet, or proso millet. These are short growing millets, popular in wildlife plantings or for quick cover to prevent soil erosion. Forage yields of these millets are considerably lower than that of pearl millet and are not usually recommended for livestock forage plantings.
Some of the forage sorghums and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids now have the brown midrib (BMR) trait, which enhances the digestibility of the forage by as much as 40%. Sudangrass is a finer grass than sorghum-sudangrass and is generally lower yielding.