This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Seed ahy and other alternatives



On Sat, 21 Feb 1998 Anitaspov@aol.com wrote:

> I've been wonderinf if anyone has any data comparing warm season grass
> (WSG)hay to the common modern types of hay.  I'd like to find the hays
> nutritional values and the cost comparison.  I'm interested so I can show
> neighboring farmers that there is value in "those weeds".  I would think pound
> per acre may be increased in WSG hay?  The fact that the hay matures later
> thus baled after nesting season and busy planting  crop times should be a
> bonus in itself.   I know most miss the quail and pheasant and would like to
> help ensure their survival.  Anyone???   
> Thanks.    anita. point of view farm

I can provide numbers that I used for various forages in calculating
forage-livestock balance sheets for a couple of range management classes.
The nutrition variables of concern are 1) Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN)
- includes digestible protein, digestible nitrogen free extract and
digestible fiber and 2) Digestible Protein (DP). These numbers apply to
the Kansas Flint Hills, but I assume the general trends would be repeated
elsewhere unless the native range and pasture had higher proportions of
cool season grasses (such as northern mixed prairie) - cool season forages
are higher quality than warm season forages.

Native Range (i.e. cows grazing a pasture)  50 - 64% TDN  1.7 - 7.2% DP
Prairie Hay (late bloom)   49% TDN  2.2% DP
Alfalfa (mid bloom) 58% TDN 12.1% DP
Brome Pasture (i.e. cows grazing a pasture) 66% TDN  9.2% DP
Brome Hay  54%TDN  5% DP

The native range has higher values than the prairie hay because a grazing 
animal is free to select high quality items (forbs and browse) along with
the grass in the pasture, whereas the prairie hay is cut at the time when
forage quality and quantity of the dominant grasses is optimized.  In
Kansas the optimal time to hay native pasture is mid July, and I honestly
don't know when the "late bloom" I indicated above refers to.  The
mid-July cutting date gives you high quality hay, good yield, and
maintains the vigor of the warm season grasses through time (because it
gives them enough time to restore carbohydrate reserves after the
cutting).  Cutting later in the year (I see a lot of people cut in August 
- September) gives high yield (lots of stems in those bales), but the
quality is poor, so it really isn't a good practice.

In terms of yield, an AUM is the amount of forage required to feed one
Aimal Unit (a 1000 lb dry cow or a cow calf pair, it depends on who you
are talking to) for one month. Here are some more numbers:

Tallgrass Range   1.2 - 2.3 AUM/acre
Kentucky Bluegrass  .9 - 2.5 AUM/acre
Smooth Brome   2 - 3 AUM/acre
N-fertilized Smooth Brome 3.9 - 6 AUM/acre
Tall Fescue  2 - 3 AUM/acre
N-fertilized Tall Fescue  3.8 - 6 AUM/acre
Alfalfa - Brome  3 - 7 AUM/acre
Alfalfa 14.4 AUM/acre
irrigated Alfalfa 32 AUM/acre

The gist of all this, or the message I take away from it is this: cool
season harvested forages (brome) are superior to warm season
harvested forages in terms of quality and equal or superior in terms of
quantity.  Alfalfa is undoubtably superior to both.  Feeding
strictly native hay to cows in the winter (mid-gestation to calving
period) here would not meet the nutritional requirements of the cows, and
some negative consequences would include reduced birth weights, reduced
birth rates, reduced calf survival and progressively later conception
dates.  There has to be supplementation with something that has higher
amounts of protein, such as brome hay or preferably alfalfa.  But
supplements such as soy cakes are also used.

Cool season pastures are also important here (because there is so much
warm season pasture) as a complimentary pasture - put them on a brome
pasture early in the spring (can't put them on the native range yet
because its not growing) so you can stop feeding them harvested forage,
(corn, hay, alfalfa, silage etc).  

None of this is probably good news for a person who is interested in
selling the good qualities of warm season grasses - but...

In many areas there is a predominance of cool season pastures (I'm
familiar with parts of Nebraska and Missouri that fit this) that provide
good grazing in the spring and some in the fall, but little in the summer.
That is where a warm season pasture would be a real benefit - a
complimentary pasture that is grazed during the summer. Also, it typically
would be really inefficient to feed strictly alfalfa to a cow during the
winter - they don't need that much protein, it exceeds their requirement.
So if you have warm season harvested forages to balance or "cut" the
alfalfa with, you can mix the two types of forages to meet the cows
requirements and reduce your costs, because the warm season forage should
be cheaper to produce if it is grown on marginal land.  Warm season forage
grown on highly productive farmland may seem cheap, but it's expensive
when you consider the "lost opportunity" of growing a crop or forage that
is worth so much more.  The taxes should be the same no matter what is
grown there.

Hope this helps.

Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PRAIRIE
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index