Sorghum sudangrass and cowpea plot has been amazing. this is the most drought tolerant grass we have on our place. the cows absolutely love it too. will devinately be planting this again.
Greetings from Greece and Mediterranean climate! This mixture is absolutely gorgeous!!! I think that with a little bit of water it'll produce massive roots and massive biomass!! Thanks for sharing this useful informations!!
I am excited to try it again in a couple months when we get back into our warm season. I’m going to plant the 10 acres I have kept the cattle on all winter. Hopefully there is enough nutrient load from the manure, urine and leftover hay that it grows the same as the test plot
There is shade available in that pasture even without trees! I know that sunflowers are microrhyzae associates, and I believe sorghum is as well. That really helps in a drought.
Hey there, Shell from South Australia here, came over from @DossFarms :D Sorghum is awesome for cattle isnt it? On the Stud/Beef/Dairy Cattle farm I lived in NSW for a couple of years back in December 2001 to January 2004 - but managed the Thoroughbred side of things for one of the bosses who had race horses - they didnt get Sorghum but the cattle did, and did well on it. They also did peasl for the cattle too. In extreme drought they fed shredded cardboard and newspaper type paper - not the magazine shiney type, sprayed with molasses plus grain so they got the roughage and fibre with the cardboard/paper and the rest of the goodies through the grain and minerals added. Thanks for teaching Chad how to put an ear tag in anyhow ;)
This was my first time growing it and I am really impressed with the tonnage it produces and it’s drought tolerance. Will definitely be planting more next year.
@@stringerbridgefarm3201 you've got a darn good crop of it there! You want a drought tolerant crop, Triticale is a good one. First time growing it with a rainfall of about 90 - 95mm for the year (average was meant to be 184), our first ever, sown quite thick cos we weren't (hubby (ex)) wasn't sure of rate and wouldn't ask anyone, and no fertilizer except what was in the soil - horse poo mostly - and it hit over the 5 1/2 ft mark, we did it for hay so a little 3 to 3.5 acre paddock yielded 16 huge round bales, 2 baby rounds and 6 piled high 7x4 trailer loads (before it was baled) that we just towed up the lane and he forked the over to them. That has a slightly longer root ball, but if you don't get the rain, you're not getting moisture that deep to draw the roots down either 😢🙄 Hope you get some of that wet stuff from above! Cheers, Shell from S. Australia
Is triticale a cool season grass? We will be planting some cool season grass in about 6 weeks. I’ve had the best results with annual ryegrass and clover. Always looking for something new to try.
@@stringerbridgefarm3201 we plant around ANZAC day, which is April 25th and going into our winter and that's hopefully when we expect around that week a starting rain - even if it's 14 to 19 mm ... (An inch is 25mm) ... And hope to reap full grain in October/November and do straw after that then let them out onto stubble - it's pretty warm in general by then having started summer - but if cutting for hay in with your Sorghum, you'd cut in the grains milk stage so much earlier and perhaps a bit greener - or cutting a paddock if it on its own cut it still greenish just turning, milky grain head, like I said ours was really high and just on perfect... No chemicals, (couldn't afford the machinery, could have borrowed but too stubborn, I mean independent, and ex didn't feel like spraying paddocks by hand with garden sprayer lol), horses, small herd of sheep, goats and my broken to ride Hereford X Gelbvieh x Brahman cow, Mabel, went in on the stubble and some had to come off as they got too fat. So yes cool weather grazing if you get a little bit of rain... The horses need at least 4 to 5 leaf stage to eat on it green as earlier than that they pull it roots and all destroying the plant and filling themselves with sand and whatever soil you have. I must admit I'm not sure on what stage you put cattle on crops but would imagine as it's tongue and bottom teeth, it's be similar ...??? Oh and MEGA bonus when stacking and storing Trit hay - mice do not like it .... Mouse plague where we had 482 mice in something daft like 48 hours in live traps (counted and "sent to live their days out on the farm" cough) in the bedroom alone and we got used to the blighters running over us in bed, up the curtains, over our faces, hands, etc, they are through the metal mesh of an old meat safe on the kitchen table that we had bread in, into a loaf of bread, I heard an unholy scream one morning and someone staying with us had opened the safe, opened the bag by the twist tie, pulled back the end of the loaf to get some slices - no bread, just exterior crust - entire middle was FULL of meeses happily there with full bread bellies. They are the plastic drain plug in the fridge ... I'd thought I was going mad cos it looked like mouse chewed stuff and thought it can't be, it's fully enclosed and vacuum sealed...wrong! So there went a couple of hundred dollars...lol Anyhow point of that wasn't to gross you out but just when we got a mouse plague we got a mouse plague ...lol and we had two truckloads of Hay which inspired us to plant it ourselves... One 40ft truck of large squares in Tritacale and one of Oaten .... Everytime we untarped the Oaten mice went everywhere. Pull a bale off with the snatch strap and the 4wd ute, and even more mice scattered.... Around 100 or more guaranteed.... We had maybe 50 mice, if that, in the entire stack of the Trit. Just something they don't like but the hoofed animals - including the borrowed Camel (had a Clydesdale to train for a council who had Clydies in work and their star was petrified if Camels - a long time family friend had camels for pets and racing so we borrowed one, as you do). All the livestock loved it anyhow.
Oh and your clover will help put some nitrate and phosphorus in your soil and help your root depth and hopefully not have it as shallow as the one that held up that fell over... Alfalfa (we call that Lucerne) is even better, do you spray fertilise the paddock at all? Fish oil, blood and bone and liquid manure are awesome too apparently - we used liquid pig manure once and bleeping heck - one little paddock went positively crazy .... it was full of limestone close to the surface so down with a spinner spreader behind the ute, covered with the harrows behind the ute and sprayed with the little spray unit behind the ute and that was oats and beardless barley I think. We just let a small herd in at 5 leaf stage - too rocky for machinery really.
I did a light disk, broadcasted the seeds, drug with a cattle panel. Never even fertilized it. I made a video titled “Summer legumes for pasture improvement” when I planted this section.
As planted it was about $35 per acre. If I did it again and only planted the sudex and cowpeas it would be more like 20-25 . If I had a drill vs broadcasting I think I would test even lower seeding rates
I think I’ll plant the ss, cowpeas and keep the sunflowers in the mix. I’ll probably plant them 40,40,20 percent respectively. The way I calculate the mix ratio is to take the recommended seeding rate x the % I want in the stand. For example if the ss seeding rate is 30 lb/acre I’ll plant 30 lb/acre x .4 = 12 pounds per acre. Thanks and take care, from south Louisiana, USA!!
