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ARS Home » Northeast Area » University Park, Pennsylvania » Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #300630
Title: Production potential of warm-season annual pastures in rotation with corn silage

Author
item SCHRENKER, DENYSE - Pennsylvania State University
item HALL, MARVIN - Pennsylvania State University
item GRANTHAM, ALISON - Pennsylvania State University
item KAYE, JASON - Pennsylvania State University
item Skinner, Robert

Submitted to: American Forage and Grassland Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2013
Publication Date: 1/12/2014
Citation: Schrenker, D.L., Hall, M.H., Grantham, A., Kaye, J.P., Skinner, R.H. 2014. Production potential of warm-season annual pastures in rotation with corn silage. American Forage and Grassland Conference Proceedings. p 1.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Warm-season grasses can provide a pasture resource and give relief to cool-season pastures during the hot summer months when cool-season pasture production declines. Increased pasture availability is especially important for organic producers because of the newly defined grazing requirement for organic dairy but is also beneficial to small dairy producers who may increase their overall profitability through grazing. By rotating warm-season annual pastures with corn silage, dairy farmers can increase their available pasture without permanently converting a field to pasture. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the performance of annual pastures and their effect on subsequent corn yield and to compare overall yield and nutritional quality of a cool-season perennial pasture system with a warm-season annual pasture rotated to corn silage. The cool-season perennial pasture treatments were a mixture of red clover and orchardgrass and red clover in monoculture. Warm-season pastures include sorghum-sudangrass, teff and red clover in monoculture or mixed stands of two and three species. The annual pastures and the red clover monoculture were rotated to silage corn. Warm-season pasture yield and quality differed significantly between treatments. The monoculture of sorghum-sudangrass and the mixed stand of sorghum-sudangrass and teff had the highest yields (7051 and 6435 kg/ha, respectively) and forage quality of the warm-season pastures had similar or higher digestibility compared to the cool-season perennial pastures. Data indicates that warm-season pastures did not affect the yields of the following corn silage as there were no significant differences in corn silage yield between warm-season pasture treatments. Preliminary results show that this rotation achieves overall higher forage yields than two years of cool-season perennial pastures, which we seek to confirm in 2014.