Seeding Plans for the beefies...

[perfecho]

Looking at triticale for swath grazing and silage...likely mix in a bit of barely/oats/wheat. Any comments?
In swath/bale grazing having a bit of an issue cleaning up oat straw....wondering if this would be better.
For silage, thinking triticale because it was seeded oats last year. Want to do some corn for grazing as well, but leery due to cost and moisture....

[WiltonRanch]

Trit is alright for swath grazing. Did a couple fields in 2014 and cows cleaned up real well. Think it would be more palatable than oats but not as much like barley. It's a good rotation from oats or barley if you're doing continuous feed crops. Heck even soft white wheat would make nice feed too and seed availability would be better I think.

[smcgrath76]

Triticale is a nearly perfect ration for beef cows in a swath grazing scenario. We usually seed barley, oats, fall rye/winter triticale together in a 2/2/1 ratio. Last year we started adding vetch to the mix (annual) and are going to continue.
We have used corn experimentally, but I am still not convinced. It is expensive. I think we may continue to use some small amount in rotation with our swath grazing as it is a C4 and provides a good disease and weed break. Our biggest problem with corn is that there is no spring grazing. I spread barley into our corn stubble on March 2nd this year and am hoping that it comes up as a volunteer grazing crop.

Millet or Corn are actually more water efficient than barley/wheat/oats/etc.

Our plan to try this year is to seed our swath grazing really early. Cut/bale and leave it and then try to get a winter/fall cereal into the same acres.

[grassfarmer]

Trying some different stuff here as we don't have the extended grazing perennial pasture opportunities we had in AB. Growing some grazing corn, Have a second year sweet clover stand that will come off as silage in June and go in straight away to seed proso millet and maybe some tillage radish with it. Also planning on early seeding some haymaker forage oats with hairy vetch, hoping to take a very light cut of greenfeed off in early July then graze the regrowth in September onwards. Going to need moisture to do all this.

[WiltonRanch]

Anyone look at pintail winter wheat? Supposed to be winter hardy like rye. If I get my act together I'm going to put some in this fall with hopes of getting seed for greenfeed, ethanol, and mixing in spring seeded mixes. Figure if I have sweetclover stubble to seed into a portion of nitrogen is covered and weed control is more cultural. I'm far from organic but I'm tired of buying a crop every year.

[perfecho]

Had read an article on wheatgrass, supposed to be very palatable, good for grazing, however think it is new and seed is hard to get.
Anyone done turnips with trit?
Trying to break the oat/barley cycle...

[WiltonRanch]

Turnips grow alright if you can keep flea beetles away. If you're grazing them you need a bale of straw out there or they'll shit through the eye of a needle. Doesn't hurt to throw a few oats in the mix. Tried it once years ago in a slough bottom in a drought and they grew well.

[grassfarmer]

Turnips are a good old Scottish feed but I'm not convinced of their role here. They need a lot of water to yield to their potential and short of irrigation you can't rely on that here. The other problem is not being able to utilise them over a long mild winter like they did in Scotland. They would presumably freeze solid, then rot when they thawed. You cant chop them for silage so it limits them to growing season utilisation.

There is renewed interest just now in Scotland in swede turnips for fattening sheep where I see they talk about averaging 36 tons/acre yield. This turnip competition winner yielded over 70 tons/acre if you can believe that!
I wonder if there is any way we could achieve more of this yield potential in Canada?

[URL="http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/first-time-turnip-triumph.26217756"]http://http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/first-time-turnip-triumph.26217756[/URL]