Forage Strategies

The bermudagrass we cut yesterday was pretty good in spots, and should yield out a fair amount. We already have more hay rolled than we did last summer, and will be adding yesterday's cutting to that number (and will probably have another cutting in late Sept. on approx. 35 acres). Despite the increase, we've still have several plans and options for feeding our herd from now through next summer:

• As of today we'll start feeding our milking herd lupin baleage. We have enough to last about 35 days, by which time we should have a good idea about whether or not lupin is a crop we should continue to grow.
• After we feed all of the lupin, we'll be going back to ryegrass baleage and then our wheat/oak baleage. We should have enough total baleage to get us well into the fall.
• Our 20 acres of BMR sudex and 55 acres of forage sorghum will be ready to harvest in September. Originally we planned on making baleage out of the sudex and chopping the sorghum, but I think we're going to go ahead and chop both crops and pack it into a silage pit.
  
• We have roughly 80 acres of cropland we haven't planted this summer that we'll use for our cool season forages. We will have to clip and/or spray the weeds and crabgrass prior to planting those crops in the next couple of months. We'll probably try to harvest some of the crabgrass as baleage. Its quality will be a factor in deciding whether to feed it to the milking herd or to heifers/dry cows.
  
• We will probably once again try to buy peanut hay, assuming the economics work out. It would allow us to extend the availability of our sorghum silage and reserve more of our bermudagrass hay for our heifers and dry cows.
• The cool season crops we intend on planting include ryegrass, oats, and triticale, with possibly some wheat and lupin. We'll use these for both grazing and for harvested forages (either baleage or chopped silage in the spring). Grazing these crops will let us extend our summer/fall-harvested forages later into the spring, and the baleage or silage we harvest from them will be our forage basis through next summer.
  

Back to the Field

We wound up with 122 wrapped bales of ryegrass last week, putting us at about 350 total wrapped bales of ryegrass and lupin/wheat. As soon as I can choke down some lunch I'll be back out in the field. We've got about 30 acres of a wheat/oat mix and 3 acres of ryegrass left to do.

Good Yield

We're estimating that our lupin/wheat combo yielded out nearly 6 tons per acre at 60-65% moisture. That's pretty good, especially since we didn't ever have to fertilize it!

Cuttin' time

I spent the last half of yesterday afternoon cutting our 10 acres of lupin. We'll aim to bale it at 65-70% moisture, and the cool weather we'll have today and tomorrow may mean that it won't be ready until Wednesday. In the meantime, I'll cut a small patch of ryegrass today. The rest of our ryegrass, as well as our wheat and oats, probably won't be ready to cut for at least a couple of weeks.

Spring Forages

We took a closer look at all of our spring forages this week and have a pretty good idea of when we'll be harvesting them. First up will be the 10 acres of lupin and wheat we have planted, as well as one 8 acre field of Marshall ryegrass. If the weather permits, I think we'll be harvesting these two spots next week. We'll use a cutter/conditioner and drop it into a row, let it sit a day or two, and then green bale it and wrap each bale in silage plastic.

Tuesday's odds and ends

• The Gilmer Dairy Farm.com front page has been slightly redesigned.
  
• Fourteen yearlings decided to exit their pasture and explore the world sometime late last night or early this morning. We found them only about a quarter mile from where they should have been and put them in a pasture with some older heifers.
• After some routine maintenance to our hay mowers, a couple of our employees spent most of the day cutting more signalgrass.
• Our milking cows continue to enjoy the mild temperatures and cool breeze that blows late into the morning. They have started showing their "heats" due to the cooler weather.
  
• Two specialists from Auburn University will be visiting with us on Wednesday. They would like us to plant about 10 acres of lupin, a forage legume, and ultimately harvest it as baleage in the spring.