Grazing in Michiana
We've had another tremendous growing season for our grasses and pastures. This past week we finished our sixth cutting of hay, and it was a very good cutting. This is the second or third year in a row now that we've made six cuttings of hay. It's amazing, because previously we could do maybe four or five.
One of the grasses that we're growing now is the improved tall fescue, and it has a tremendous ability to produce forage. On one of our farms where we make hay, my brother had seeded some of the newer varieties of tall fescue 20 or 25 years ago, and we're still harvesting those same plants that he seeded back then, which is amazing to me. Twenty years ago may not seem like it would be considered a new variety, but I learned from a conference I attended one time that it takes approximately 15 years to develop a new variety of perennial grass seed.
We have seeded the tall fescue on almost all our hay and pasture acres now and are reaping some really good benefits because of the quality and quantity that's produced. This year, our first cutting was on April 30. I did some figuring and there are approximately 150 days from April 30 till we did our sixth cutting that we made on Oct. 5. This means we were probably cutting the hay about every 25 to 30 days this summer.
The tall fescue varieties are very aggressive and healthy, with a tremendous root system. On one of our farms, there is a tile running through it for a geothermal heating and cooling system and over the last 20 years we've had to dig it up approximately four or five times and clean the grassroots out of it out in the middle of the field. The fescue roots are growing clear down to the tile and plugging it up. The tiles are approximately 3 feet down. These newer fescue varieties are very different than the old varieties from years ago. The fescue is low in endophytes, and the cattle graze it very well and it makes excellent feed.
The oats and turnips that we seeded about three or four weeks ago are growing very well. On some of the pastures on the home farm where the gray leaf spot was a problem, I seeded a new variety of Italian ryegrass. It is coming along fine also. I looked and found out that there is an Italian ryegrass variety called "Meroa" that showed a very high resistance to gray leaf spot. I was able to find some and seeded it on the fields where the gray leaf spot is a problem. The gray leaf spot is not very active below 70 degrees, and the weather has been fairly dry, so it may not be much of a problem any more this time of the year. I will be interested to see next year if it actually has a resistance to the gray leaf spot.
I haven't applied any of the gibberellic acid yet because it performs best when the temperatures are between 40 and 60 degrees, and we've been running closer to 50 to 70 degrees the last number of weeks. In the 15-day forecast, it looks like we'll need to be applying it by the end of this week or the early part of next week. The benefit of gibberellic acid lasts for approximately three weeks. It stimulates a very good amount of growth in the fall.
Here are some of the main points about applying gibberellic acid to pasture plants: First is temperature. Use gibberellic acid when the daytime air temperature is between 40-60 degrees F and the soil temperature range is between 43-60 degrees F. Second is timing. Apply one to five days after grazing. Wait until the grass has just started to recover and is about 1-2 inches tall. Then keep the animals off it for 21-28 days after spraying to maximize growth. Third is moisture and nutrients. Only apply to paddocks with adequate soil moisture and nutrients.
Since there are no more calves being born at this time of the year, and since most of the breeding work is done, we can relax a little and do some deer hunting and other fall things. October is a really good month of the year to have cattle grazing and to be caring for cattle on the pasture, since the summer heat is over and the winter cold has not arrived yet. They are very happy cows!