# Grazing cover crops



## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Planted a cover crop of turnips, crimson clover, and tritacle following corn. Planted September 10, I'd like to plant earlier then that but corn harvest started slowly. Started turning them in this weekend. 




Everyone said wait 45 days min to turn them in. We haven't had a killing frost yet so they also have volinteer corn. 




They are eating the corn first followed by the tritacle. Trying to rotate them before they get the turnips. I'm hoping to be able to be able to rotatle them back through this fall after a frost and get the turnips. Then graze the tritacle and clover in the spring before terminating it and going back to corn. 

Anyone else have any advice,or experiments of their own?


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

I am all questions. Love this topic. I have been wanting to test a five acre wintering area for cows.

How did you plant? It looks like very good coverage. I will enjoy grazing the follow up posts. 

Thanks for the pictures.


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Planted 17 acres, rented a drill from nrcs because for 17 acres our 30' would require someone riding on it moving seed all the time. I set the rate to put down 40lbs and went to drilling. I could tell I wasn't getting enough on and opened it up more after doing the first seven acre patch. Not sure why but it only put down about half what it should have. Since I was paying by the acre I didn't want to go over it again so I cleaned out the drill and spread the remaining seed with my spreader on my 4wheeler. Got a rain on it pretty soon after but the broadcast seed took a lot longer to emerge and is still noticeably smaller. Got a good stand and if it was solely intended as a cover crop it'd be a cheeper route. Since I'm wanting the grazing I think drilling is the way to go.


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## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

Ok I know what drill seeding is but I am not sure what you are "turning over". You grew your corn and harvested it, now you are planning a variety of stuff to use as a cover crop and winter grazing for cows. Is this correct. Gotta hate newbies huh.


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

sisterpine said:


> Ok I know what drill seeding is but I am not sure what you are "turning over". You grew your corn and harvested it, now you are planning a variety of stuff to use as a cover crop and winter grazing for cows. Is this correct. Gotta hate newbies huh.


It's all no till if that's what your asking. I can expand on that some if that's what your asking just not sure what your asking.


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

My favorite subject this year.

This was a hay field we cut the hay (late) plowed and planted to Forage Oats and radish. Planted it August 1st. Around Sept. 10 I put cows in on part of it. You can see the fence where the cows grazed the left side and the righ side is still full height.









At the time of the photo I am building pig fence. I put the pigs on this on Sept 19th 
They are still on it as of today 10/27

I have 4 sows and 2 boars on this and it is still very lush. I should have cut their supplemental grain feeds back some. The non-lactating pens were getting 2-3 pound of whole corn per animal almost every day. I should have cut that back more.

The right hand side we put the cows in for 2 weeks. Around 10/6 till 10/20 they took it down to the tubers of the radish. I'll let them back in when the grass gets a little leaner to eat up more tubers. I'll try to get a photo now so you can see.

The tall 'sweet clover' on the far left of the photo is cover cropping for honey bees and beef.
Sweet clover improves nitrogen, honey bees love it, cows love it. BUT the pigs think it is nothing but shade.


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

In November I want to seed winter wheat into the field in the photo in the previous post. This will give me winter cover with a good grazing crop in the spring.


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

I should have mentioned.
I broadcast seed and drag.
Only plow on a few fields I acquired that are in bad need of leveling and breaking the hard pack.
Usually do 'minimal' till with rototiller. Just enough to kill weeds or previous crop and get the seeds to go in.
I hope to get a small no-till planter in 2015


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

I've got two smaller patches, slightly over an acre, that I planted and grazed sorghum on this summer that'll go to wheat, weather permitting, this week. Considered radishes also but this late I think ill frost seed ladino clover and turn the pigs in on it in the spring. 

Got quite a bit of forage our of the sorghum, but I don't like having to worry about Prusic acid positioning. Late July, August are when I want them to graze it and its got drought stress


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Turnips have winter killed after last weeks extended cold snap. One patch I never grazed before the killing frost. When the leafs of the turnips died back I could see that the tritacle was taller then I'd thought. Most of the patches I rotated them through after a day, but one patch I just left them on 12 hours and one I left them on several days. Hoping the patch I left them on longer doesn't winter kill as its grazed pretty far back. Wanted to do some different things for future reference so I don't have any "answers" to pass along at this time just an update. 

I'd been feeding hay before I started, if you figure that a bale will cost $30 I've already broke even on my planting costs with they hay I've saved. Guess I do have one answer.


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Haven't updated this in awhile. Don't have any recent pics and its raining so I'm not going to go take any. This is about the time of year that I planned to terminate the cover crop and go back to corn. Its been to wet so I've held off to get some more grazing. I'm still hoping to notill the corn. I'm not sold on the triticale, guess I need to talk to more people, but it cost me $18 an acre and I can plant bin run wheat for less then half that. I guess the appropriate thing to do would be to dig a pit and see if the root mass warrants the additional expense. Also for my application I'm not sure if I'm getting the benefits from the cremson clover. It just hasn't had time to take off, I was hoping it would fixate nitrogen but I don't think there is enough above ground growth to do so. If I get it planted when I want I'd have almost 2 months of fall growth before our normal first frost, so I'm considering planting a legume with more fall growth. I'm happy with the turnips but will probably add a lb or two of tillage radish also. The turnips don't penetrate the ground as much as I'd like if I intend to keep notilling I want to add something that can break up compaction. 

Overall I'm very happy. I wish I had more acres of cover crop to graze so I could keep something green for them to graze in front of them all winter. I have gotten enough grazing off of it to more then justify my investment in saved hay. I should still see a the benifits from a cover crop. Nutrient scavaging, soil health, reduced erosion. Cows are grazing the triticale right now so they aren't eating grass and I'm getting more spring growth. I'm excited about it. 

My next step is to grow a crop that they can graze in the heat if summer when the fescue is burning up. I've used Sudan and the risk of prusic acid when its stressed worries me. I'm leaning toward planting sunn hemp after wheat on a few acres. If I wet chopped the wheat I'd get the sunn hemp in June one so it'd be ready to graze mid July. Right now I need the money from the wheat seed so ill probably harvest it and get it planted July one. Alittle later so I won't have grazing till August. I'd rather chop the wheat it'd work better just nit for my cash flow. 

Anyone have experience with sunn hemp? Any other summer grazing recomendations? One thing I hate about all of this is most if the people with much knowledge are also trying to sell me seed.


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

Cow peas, I don't think sun hemp is real palatable. I'll try to find some links for you in the next couple days.


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## ramiller5675 (Mar 31, 2009)

Oklahoma State University was doing a research project last summer about grazing cover crops that's on YouTube at: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqksxKgMRNs[/ame] 

The cover crop details are about halfway through, but they planted a mix of 10 lb. BMR sorghum-sudangrass, 10 lb. cowpeas, and 5 lb. sunn hemp. 

I once talked to a guy that claimed he always planted a mix of millet and cowpeas after his wheat mainly for hay, but I'd think you could easily graze something like that.

I've grazed sorghum-sudangrass before without any problems, as long as it's not in the middle of a drought or otherwise stressed, I don't worry too much about prussic acid (I'm usually more worried about nitrate poisoning).


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

No answers but plenty of reading. http://gostarseed.com/ seed co., http://www.jeinc.com/cover-crop seed co. with links to USDA fact sheets, http://msucares.com/crops/forages/legumes/index.html Mississippi extension link, http://www.no-tillfarmer.com/download-cover-crops-pluses-and-minus no till magazine link


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Allen W said:


> Cow peas, I don't think sun hemp is real palatable. I'll try to find some links for you in the next couple days.


From what I've been told sunn hemp is excelent forage under 40" tall. Over that and it becomes to fiberious. Cow peas have been suggested with the sunn hemp 

I was waiting for a baby to come last night and was reading about Australian winter peas. I'm courous if I could get them planted in late august if is be happy with their fall growth. That would be after corn with tritacle/wheat and radish/turnip


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## kycrawler (Sep 18, 2011)

I have planted the Austrian winter peas before didn't get much growth out of them this fall I plan to plant bin run wheat and turnips. The turnip seed is cheap at MFA about 1.70 a lb if you buy a full bag and 50 lb of turnip seed makes a lot of tonnage of feed


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

I had sun hemp in a mixed planting last year ( 2014 ) The mix was Forage Oats, Sun Hemp, Phycelia. 
The cows totally ignored the Sun Hemp and Phycelia while eating the Oats to the ground. If they were mob-grazed on a tighter rotation they probly would have eaten it all. But they were permitted to selectively graze this plot to see what they thought about the Sun Hemp and Phycelia.


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

Fun useful thread. Cows always have a general opinion on forage. I used to have a cow that even ate musk thistle until it go over eight or ten inches tall.

kycrawler, did you broadcast the turnip seed?


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

Bret said:


> Fun useful thread. Cows always have a general opinion on forage. I used to have a cow that even ate musk thistle until it go over eight or ten inches tall.
> 
> kycrawler, did you broadcast the turnip seed?


I tried broadcasting last spring and fall and had far superior results with the drill. Not saying it can't work, just my results. 

Along those lines can you successfully broadcast pearl millet? From what I'm reading here I'm leaning that way. If sunn hemp wasn't so expensive id still like to try it but seed is quite a bit higher then millet or other options.


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## kycrawler (Sep 18, 2011)

I use a john Deere fb drill it isn't no till but if the ground isn't too hard it works . I mix with wheat or oats in the drill to seed it . I have broadcast turnips before not nearly as good as drilling them I did plow some sod last fall broadcast seed it them disc the seed in and it worked OK


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

A good tip. Thanks.


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