At Dutch Meadows Dairy in Clinton County, Tony Jandernoa is integrating triticale, a winter annual forage, and sudangrass, a summer annual forage in his cropping system to feed his 1,500 cow herd. Triticale is a wheat/rye hybrid that makes excellent chopped silage for high producing dairy cows when harvested at the flag leaf stage, or a highly palatable and high-yielding feed for dry cows and young stock when harvested later in the boot or soft dough stage of growth. So far, the best fit for these forage crops at the Dutch Meadow Dairy is to drill triticale as soon as the corn silage comes off. An ideal time to seed date triticale is 10- to 14-days earlier than the best time for wheat, typically the first part of September in much of mid-Michigan. When the crop is harvested in mid- to late May in the early boot stage it yields about 6-8 tons per acre of 65 percent moisture silage, an ideal addition to the ration for close-up cows, dry cows and heifers. After the triticale is harvested the goal is to seed sudangrass with a target silage harvest yield of about 5 tons per acre in early August so a new alfalfa seeding is in by August 15.
Adding a winter annual in the cropping system provides many benefits beyond feed production: it keeps the ground covered and an active root system throughout the year, builds soil structure and health, reduces runoff and nutrient loss to the environment, improves manure nutrient cycling and use, and can spread out the crop harvest and planting workload. However, new opportunities can present new challenges for managing manure and the cropping system.
You can find out more about managing manure and the cropping system at the Dutch Meadows Dairy at the 2015 Tour: What’s New with Poo on August 18. The day-long tour will begin at Providence Agriculture, 9650 Roosevelt Rd, Carson City and include bus stops featuring state-of-the-art manure separation technologies, treatment and handling, harvestable buffers and managing manure and cover crops for feed.