Great Info on Goat Forage - Turnips, rye and alfalfa

This is another great article that Noah Goddard found and put on his lists. I got really excited when I read about sewing turnips for winter forage. I'm going to try it if I can find some turnip seeds. If you do this, please, please, please publish the results somewhere and let us know in a comment about your experience.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce E Anderson
To: HAYFORAGE@listserv.unl.edu
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:36 PM
Subject: Hay & Forage Minutes for July 20 through 24 -- turnips, alfalfa pasture, fly into corn

69. PLANT TURNIPS FOR WINTER GRAZING
Interested in a high quality pasture for late fall and winter grazing? Then plant turnips into wheat or oat stubble this year. Stay tuned for more.

You need all the grazing you can get this year. One way to get more grazing is to extend your grazing season into fall and winter using turnips. Turnips provide good grazing beginning in October and often lasts into the new year. Also, turnips are cheap to plant since seed can cost less than ten dollars per acre. And late July to early August is the time to plant turnips for fall grazing.
Seedbed preparation and planting can be done several ways. Some turnip growers work soil like a fully prepared alfalfa seedbed. Others heavily disk their ground, but leave it fairly rough before broadcasting seed. And a few growers spray glyphosate or Gramoxone on wheat or oat stubble to kill weeds and then plant no-till.
Whatever method you choose, good early weed control is essential. Turnips do poorly if weeds get ahead of them, but once started, turnips compete very well. Since no herbicides are labeled for turnips, weeds must be controlled either by tillage or by using contact herbicides like glyphosate or Gramoxone before planting. Then plant quickly to get the turnips off and running.
Plant only 2 to 4 pounds of turnip seed per acre. Turnip seed is very small, so barely cover it. If you drill your seed, just scratch the surface with your openers. Simply broadcasting seed onto tilled soils works well for many growers, especially on rough seedbeds where rainfall or irrigation washes soil onto the seeds for soil coverage.
Then wait. With a few timely rains you will have excellent green feed for late October, November, and December.

70. ALFALFA FOR SUMMER PASTURE
When pastures are short and low quality during summer, what can you graze to maintain animal performance? Maybe alfalfa is your answer. Stick around.

Most pastures have difficulty providing abundant, high quality grazing throughout the summer, regardless of whether they are drought stressed or not. Yearlings and calves can really use better pasture at this time. Both drought-stunted alfalfa and well-growing alfalfa might fill that role of a better quality temporary pasture.
But, how do you get started and how do you avoid problems with bloat? Begin by dividing fields so animals graze no longer than 5 days at a time on any one area. One rule of thumb is that one ton of standing alfalfa hay will provide about 45 cow days of grazing. If you estimate your alfalfa would yield one ton of hay if you cut it right now, then one acre should feed 45 cows for one day. And if possible, limit the size of paddocks to 10 acres or less to get more uniform grazing. After grazing a paddock, plan grazing and haying so at least 35 days of regrowth will occur before harvesting the same area again.
To reduce bloat, begin grazing alfalfa after it begins to bloom. Short, drought-stunted, yet blooming alfalfa should be pretty safe. Also, be sure animals are full before first turning onto alfalfa and never let animals get hungry. In addition, begin grazing mid-afternoon and do not turn them onto fresh alfalfa that is moist with dew, rain, or irrigation. Yearlings tend to bloat less than cows, but feeding supplements like poloxalene, rumensin, and oxytetracycline can help reduce bloat for all classes of cattle.
These precautions and management practices can help you use alfalfa for pasture and overcome the late summer pasture slump.

71. FLYING TURNIPS OR RYE INTO CORN
Crop residues like corn stalks provide good winter feed. Adding turnips or cereal rye to them can sometimes make them even better. Stay tuned for tips and risks.

Corn stalks are one of the better and least expensive winter feeds we have. But once cattle finish eating the grain and husks, what remains isn’t all that good.
Some growers have improved both the amount and quality of corn stalk grazing by flying turnip or rye seed onto standing corn in early August. When successful, turnip or rye plants provide more grazing days and extra protein when corn stalks become poor quality.
Let me emphasize the words ‘when successful’. It’s not all that easy to get a good stand of either turnips or rye to become productive in a growing corn field.
Several factors limit success rates. Moisture easily can be limiting in dryland corn, but also can be difficult to manage in surface irrigated fields. Even under pivots, providing water for rye or turnips without slowing corn harvest takes planning.
Another problem is the density of the corn canopy. Irrigated fields can be especially thick, acting like weeds to prevent adequate light from reaching new seedlings. Chopping corn for silage or combining high moisture grain early helps.
And speaking of weeds, herbicide carryover also causes problems. Turnips are very sensitive, but rye also is affected.
Lastly is wheel traffic at harvest. Turnips are damaged more than rye, but both lose stand if fields get muddy.
I do like improving corn stalks with rye or turnips. But be aware there are challenges, and try to find ways to overcome them.

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Bruce Anderson
Extension Forage Specialist
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68583-0951

voice: 402/472-6237
fax: 402/472-7904