Search

In light of the recent increased enforcement of the Plant Variety Protection Act, farmers and ranchers need options for affordably producing winter pasture for stocker cattle. One option is ryegrass.

Annual ryegrass is a cool-season grass that originated in southern Europe. It is sometimes called Italian ryegrass.

In fall 2014, we began demonstration plots of various cover crops overseeded into warm-season perennial grass pastures.

Adequate nitrogen is necessary for optimizing winter pasture production. One consideration for providing adequate nitrogen is to maximize nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). One way to improve NUE is to apply nitrogen during the late winter as a topdress application.

The vast majority of the winter pasture in the Southern Great Plains is wheat. There are many reasons for this, including culture, the opportunity to harvest and sell grain, and government and insurance programs.

As you are looking for next winter's hay, you should take a sample of each lot before committing to purchase. A hay analysis prior to purchase offers one of the greatest returns on investment in the ranching business.

Many producers haven't restocked to pre-drought cow numbers, and the welcomed rains have resulted in excess forage. When frost arrives this fall, there will be abundant standing forage in many areas, but the quality will be more extreme than we typically encounter.

Lime and fertilizer make up a substantial portion of the costs of producing winter pasture. Lime may or may not be needed - only a soil test can tell you for sure. If lime is recommended, its application can pay good dividends.

There are several "classes" of reserve forages that are available for grazing livestock beginning in September and going forward through winter. It is critical to take inventory of forage reserves now to determine what is on hand and what is expected to be produced.

The ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L) variety testing program is designed to provide up-to-date performance information to cooperators and producers in Oklahoma and Texas about ryegrass varieties that...