Winter Grazing Sorghum Sudangrass

Volesky mentions a producer who plants sorghum sudan grass and cuts it once for hay then leaves it growing until frost.

Winter grazing sorghum sudangrass. For more information contact your local cooperative extension office. Grazing sorghum sudangrass over the winter. Its getting closer to the time when i can start to graze the field of sorghum sudangrass i planted back on july 22. Larger stems make drying for hay more difficult than for sudangrasses.

Its also very tolerant of heat and drought making it hardy. Do not graze the crop after a frost if new shoots develop or if it is under two feet tall. 4 he cut the 5 foot sorghum sudan and got 18 5 by 5 foot bales of baleage. He cut the 5 foot tall crop a second time on oct.

Glucosides are compounds that break down or decompose into glucose sugars by hydrolysis addition of water. Yield is generally less than that for forage sorghums but similar or slightly higher than sudangrass. Dont feed silage until three weeks after ensiling. Wait until the sorghum has wilted and dried five to six days before grazing.

Sorghum sudangrass hybrids are intermediate in plant size between sorghum and sudangrass. It can be used for hay haylage green chop and pasture. Grazing the sorghum sudangrass a couple of times over the summer instead of baling hay would probably be the best option for soil building plus having something like wheat pasture to graze in the winter would be a better overall system for wintering cattle than grazing winter killed sorghum sudangrass. These plants called cyanogenetic plants produce cyanogenetic glucosides during their growing stage.

Quickly summarizing by the first of octoberit had more or less reached maturity was starting to put out seed heads and the better parts of the field were about 8 feet tall. Ideally the sorghum is planted in june in texas or whenever the soil reaches roughly 60of. I thought it did well hageman said. Sudangrass and sorghum are two of a group of plants that produce cyanide which can poison livestock under certain conditions.

After frost he grazes that standing stockpiled forage summer annuals work well for this as do cocktail mixes that include warm and cool season species. Sorghum sudangrass and pearl millet planted in mid july would have tdn from 50 to 55 and crude protein of 6 to 8 in the early winter. Hageman planted a 55 acre pasture with bmr sorghum sudangrass at a rate of 35 pounds per acre on june 10 after a cutting of grass hay. It grows so quickly especially in temperate regions that it creates a thick stand that cannot be penetrated by weeds.

Sorghum sudan grass is a great cover crop for revitalizing worn out farmed out soils because it adds a lot of organic matter and bulk to the soil. Cattlemen turn their cows out on it about 50 to 60 days later and can continue grazing it for the next 90 to 120 days or until the first hard frost sometimes until late october in his area.