cover crop

The cattle are now grazing the sorghum-sudan regrowth.  We planted the crop instead of a few extra acres of corn and hayed it in mid August.  It is now back to knee high and the critters relish it.  We also seeded about a half rate of red clover under the oats/peas and that gave a nearly complete cover.  The thought was that we would interseed rape and oat/pea into the clover for a late season grazing crop.  I don't know if that idea works.  The red clover stood still for about a month after grain harvest due to the dry conditions.  We did get the rape seed out there, and now since the rain has started it is filling in the gaps nicely.  Still, in the areas where the red clover took hold, the stand will be predominately red clover.  It won't work well for grazing until after a very hard frost to kill the clover.  As it stands now, the clover would kill the cattle.

Also the Sorghum-sudan as a clear stand has its drawbacks.  It will not fix N for the next crop.  It will also  quit and turn poisonous as it turns to straw at the first nighttime mid thirties temp.  We need to diversify more.

Jim