The Green County Land and Water Conservation Department, along with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, present their 2016 Pasture Walk, “Grazing the Summer Lull” at Holmstrom’s Grassy Acres, N9276 Hay Hollow Road, Blanchardville.

Jamie, his wife Deanne and daughter Samantha milk 40 cows on pasture. The cows are fed on a strictly grasses diet—no grains. The cows main forage in the summer is Sudan grass. Jamie feels he gets twice as much forage from the Sudan grass than his traditional pasture/hay grasses.

Jamie grew up on this 200-acre farm as a kid. After graduating from high school in 1990, he began working for his father on the farm. In 2001, he bought the cows and continued the intensive farming. He never liked using chemicals and thought there had to be a better way so, in 2006, he starting intensive rotational grazing. Wondering what he should do, he seeded down the whole farm in 2012. By 2013, he was certified organic. Needing more feed he decided to try Sudan grass in 2015.

Using Annual Grasses to Increase Pasture Production

If you are familiar with pastures in Wisconsin, you know that grasses do not grow as fast during the hot summer months. This is because the majority of Wisconsin pastures are made up of cool season grasses that put on most of their growth in spring and early summer, with a small growth spurt during the cool fall weather. Legumes, such as clover and alfalfa, however, have a more even growth pattern through the grazing season.

Since cool season grasses make up anywhere from 50-80 percent of our pasture forages, the reduced growth in the summer can shut down pasture production unless you have additional land for the livestock to graze. One way to minimize the amount of additional land is to grow high producing annual forages during the summer months. These forages grow very fast in hot weather and can provide a lot of extra feed to get the livestock through the season. Some examples of “warm season annual forages” are sorghum-sudan, corn, and millet. They all make good feed, but perhaps grazing varieties of corn is the most productive. Sorghum-sudan and millet relatives of corn which can be less expensive to grow.

Join Brian Pillsbury-NRCS State Grazing Land Specialist as he discusses the advantages and disadvantages of grazing annual grasses.

Please join us for a discussion of Sudan grass and other grasses for warm weather forage.

Registration and networking begin at 11:00 a.m. At 11:15 a.m., the walk and discussion of pasture condition will begin. At 12:00 p.m., Brian Pillsbury will present “Warm Weather Forage Feeding.”