annual hay

Yesterday we cut the complex cover crop on thirty acres.  It was seeded on June 6 and had reached a height of about four feet.  It was lush, thick as the hair on the proverbial dog, with several weed species joining the soybeans, spring peas, annual ryegrass, sorghum-sudan grass, oats, crimson and red clovers, and a rape/turnip hybrid.  By the time we finished, the haybine was covered with green juice. 

The idea for the complex seed mix came from work being done by farmers in North Dakota.  They are planting mixes of seed and generally grazing them after something approaching a full season.  They talk of the benefits of that complex system of roots for the soil in terms of controlling erosion and building microbial life in the soil, as well as water holding capacity, and we wanted to see for ourselves.  The idea of cutting the crop only seven weeks after seeding is ours, driven by our need to produce a higher energy hay for maintaining gains on our grass fed cattle in winter, as well as a forage supplement for our sow herd. 

The sorghum-sudan, the rape/turnip, the clovers and the ryegrass will come back after the cutting and provide another harvest or a nice window of grazing in September.  The rape/turnip should give an opportunity for grazing right to, and perhaps beyond Thanksgiving as it takes a very hard freeze to stop growth.  The ryegrass will maintain quality late too, so we will see about that. 

This is all part of our endless searching here at Pastures for a different and perhaps better way of doing crops, pastures and livestock.  It is what makes farming worth doing.  We fail to believe that farming is a "mature" industry, choosing rather to think it is a wide open one.