Anybody grow this crop

I see such forage crops and they always look interesting. Because they are so different.

Locally the dairy cow folk use alfalfa and lots of it, and more corn silage. Everyone else uses waste land grass hay and corn silage for the rough feed. Waste land here locally is areas too wet to get a crop in, but it usually dries off for a bit in mid summer and can harvest some grass hay off of it.

Both corn and alfalfa grow too well on our dirt to try much of anything else. And our growing season is way too short to add in a second crop of such forages.

So I always look at those crops and the info and concepts of them and think, pretty cool stuff, just doesnt fit here.

Way way back in the 1970s and 80s there were some strange farm programs where some folk ended up planting such crops for cover crop, plow down, and really plowed them down with molboard plows. It was interesting to see the crop much taller than the tractor getting turned under!

During various strange weather years a few dairy folk experimented with such crops on a few acres over the years. But generally it was a low cost effort to make a bit of rough forage and lack of thought, proper equipment, and the bad weather that made them a crop choice still hurt them too, made for poor results and they all said never again it wasnt worth it the feed value per acre and feed quality was not good compared to a normal crop of alfalfa or corn.


I realize my reply is no real value to you, but its early Sunday morning too wet to farm too early for church, so I ramble a bit.....

Paul

We have planted peas and oats for hay July 18 and we are frozen solid before thanksgiving . Put it up for hay was a bit of challenge to get it in the bale but we did

Our equivalent to that in the Deep South is Johnson grass. Same family different plant.

Where they shine is as a fallow field cover crop. They have a deep root system to break up compact soil and add a lot of organic matter into the soil when plowed under.

They can be used and make good grazing or hay if you are careful. Like all plants in the sorghum family they produce cyanide if stressed. This often happens after a frost. Horses are more effected but it can effect cattle also.

I couldnt remember if this was the one that if froze made cyanide so probably not the best option for what I am doing

Southern Minnesota, we struggle to dry things down most months other than August or early September. Either too much rain, too humid, or too cold for a forage crop to dry. These bigger stemmed stuff especially.

The bigger operations are all silage or wrapped bales.

A lot of oats still planted as cover for alfalfa seeding, although a lot run an oats and pea crop, chop/ wet bale it in dough stage spread manure and then plant fall seeding of alfalfa.

Paul

Is that the same as sorghum sudan grass? We used to grow that every year for green chop when we milked cows. Real good for that, but I tried to bale some one year and the stalks wouldn't dry.

Yes it is sudangrass I wasnt sure until I did some research on it . I planted it one year for the neighbor and we baled it and it does take forever to dry