# winter grazing in East Texas



## mtarrant

I am planning for next year, planning on sowing something for winter grazing. I am in Athens, near Tyler, TX. Heard Elbon Rye would be good, just looking for other suggestions.
Have to work to get PH up so thought I should start now.


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## hay wilson in TX

If nothing else he can put on to the numerous extension material on your question.

He should be able to put you in contact with one or more of the Extension Specialist and Researchers at the Overton Research Station. 
If you wish to bypass all that contact Dr. Vanessa Corriher [email protected].

There is a difference if you are sod seeding into established Summer Grasses or into a prepared seed bed.
You will find the Rye Grain will play out about when Ryegrass starts later during the winter. 
You could go to one of the nondormant alfalfa varieties and go first class with winter grazing.

I happen to like Tifton 85 that is allowed to build up reserve of forage and to cure standing. Then use managed grazing, of you stockpiled forage, for the off season. That or use some of the appropriate native grasses for winter stockpiled forage.

Then there is vetch, cow peas, and a few clovers that will fit in the program.

Some folks plant forage type turnips, of radishes.

Regardless there will be some management required.


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## mtarrant

Thanks Hay Wilson, I will be talking to my extension agent. I have learned a lot from this forum and respect a lot of you guys with years of experience. Used a lot of your advice last year on small squares.
I didn't think that we could grow alfalfa in our sandy soils, yet I noticed Dr Haby was working on an alfalfa patch. I don't know if I could afford the lime to get the PH right.
Thought about the cowpeas, but i can't keep the hogs run off as it is.
Thanks again


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## vhaby

mtarrant,

You may already have read the blogs on the Thread "Alfalfa and blister beetles." If not, see response #3 for the Texas A&M- Overton web site. Follow the directions to open the "Selecting Coastal Plain Soils for Alfalfa." After clicking on the title, be patient as it takes a few seconds to open. This article shows the economics of alfalfa for hay in counties surrounding Overton. It also describes how to go about selecting soils suitable for alfalfa- a most important step.

Also while on this site you can search AgriLife field day publications by clicking on "Center Publications" and then clicking on "AgriLife Article Search Database." Once the database opens, click on "Keyword" and then click on Alfalfa to read 44 articles on alfalfa research done in this region. There are several articles on grazing alfalfa.


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## mtarrant

Thank you so much, It will take me a while to digest all of the info. I have been on the Texas A&M Overton sight a lot, lots of info to digest!!! Just have to put a pencil to cost to get Alfalfa going, and not sure about my soils, have to reread article. right now my plan is to overseed some different things to see what does best, what the cows like most and the hogs like least ;-)


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## Customfarming

For grazing I would look into a ryegrass variety and not a cereal rye variety. Ryegrass takes off a little faster and will take more grazing. But if you are looking at minimum grazing and wanting to bale it for hay then cereal rye or triticale will work.

On alfalfa I would advise against. I have similar soils as you do and also farm for a couple dairies just north of Athens so I know how sandy the soils are down there. Alfalfa may grow if and when we get the rain but I dont think you will like the yield. In those sandy soils it's going to take a lot of water. As dry as it is this year it's going to take a lot of water to turn things around.

If you can get your ph to around 5.7-6 then you can try planting wheat since it can grow in acidic soils.


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## vhaby

Are you talking about clean-till seeded ryegrass vs rye? If seeding rye and ryegrass into bermudagrass sod in October, the cereal rye can be grazed earlier than ryegrass, in my observations. Under our "normal" weather and fall rainfall conditions, it is difficult to produce grazeable ryegrass seeded into bermudagrass sod much before some time in March.

Also, alfalfa once established is as drought tolerant as the hybrid bermudagrasses. During the seedling year I've see it so dry that I had to scratch the soil surface to find the alfalfa plants in late summer, but when it began to rain again, the alfalfa came on and the succeeding years did well. This was on a variety of soils. Subsoil aluminum can be more of a deterrent to alfalfa yield on acid soils than our normal rainfall, so careful site/soil selection is critical to successful alfalfa production. Annual yields can be in the 5 ton/acre range. I'm not pushing alfalfa as a grazing forage, although it can be done and initiates regrowth normally in mid February in our region. Alfalfa is is more valuable as a hay crop, unless it is being green-chopped for feeding dairy cows.

Read the following web site for data on farm-grown and research plot alfalfa from TAMU-Overton:

http://overton.tamu.edu/files/2011/04/SelectingCoastalPlainSoilsforAlfalfa.pdf


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## mtarrant

Thanks Vhaby, I am looking for grazing forage for fall and early winter. My goal is to fill in the gap between warm season grasses and when the ryegrass and clover comes on. I know I will still need hay, but trying to manage the system better.


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## hay wilson in TX

In theory there are a few winter growing perennials, but our summers may do them in.

I keep coming back to alfalfa only because it is a really good forage that works with *MANAGED grazing*.

Granted we have radically different soils (dirt) though the climate has some resemblances. We both have our summer drought.

I have a neighbor who has drilled alfalfa into bermuda sod, but he mostly has alfalfa planted into a clean seed bed. He likes to seed a mixture of legumes into his bermudagrass sod. He selects an overgrazed pasture and seeds that around 1 October.

He also has seeded alfalfa into most of his bermudagrass pastures by feeding alfalfa hay that has gone to seed. 
Here alfalfa stops growing in July but it will bloom and set seed. 
Usually this alfalfa will be 6 to 8 inches tall. 
We will get a Labor Day rain which encourages a fall growth for hay. 
Cut this good alfalfa with the 8" stems with seed pods. (We also get seed shatter and volunteer seedlings in thinning stands.)

The way my neighbor manages his grazing of pure stand alfalfa is he puts them in for an hour, maybe 1.5 hours and then walks them back to the old dry standing bermudagrass. 
You can get exotic and divide an alfalfa field into numerous small paddocks, but you still want them to be on grass pasture most of the time.

With alfalfa do not save money by not putting a lot of lime out, as alfalfa uses a whole lot of calcium. (N/A Here.)
Remember both use as much potash as they use nitrogen. Several hundred pounds of potash is not excessive. For hay use 500 lbs/A of 0-0-60. Maybe include 100 lbs of K-Mag for a little more potassium and some sulfur. Consider split applications.

You will be fertilizing after each cutting, and it would not hurt to include some ammonium sulfate in your blend.

*For winter grazing it is difficult to beat Tifton 85 that is frost killed with 24" of standing growth. *
*Remember any over seeding will also require extra fertility management.*


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## mtarrant

guess i will try a small patch of alfalfa and see if the $$ make sense. Will take tons of lime in my soils.


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## hay wilson in TX

The folks at Overton Research Center have done some work with alfalfa.

On These Pages vhaby is a treasure trove of East Texas Forages, alfalfa included.


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## mtarrant

I totally agree, probably most knowledgable person on alfalfa in these parts! 
If it doesn't rain, its gonna be hard to get anything to grow. Guess I will have to irrigate around my springfed pond to get something for them to eat since kinda short on hay.


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## clayh

im just north of corsicana and i have found that in my black land, and my specific cattle seem to do best on rye, oat, vetch mixture. the thing to remember about some oats ive planted is if it gets to a certain height and weather gets below freezing it will die. (never been a problem for me cause i graze so heavy) but a buddy of mine planted it just to bale in spring and it died. with the rye, oat, vetch mixture, on a good year, i grazed heavy in winter, and still came out with 4 round bales per acre in the spring. but i had the soil right, soil tested and fert. to match it. of course we got good rain and no snow that year. but its not crazy to think at least 2 round bales per acre.


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## mtarrant

Thanks, have you seeded already this year? wondering if it is too late?


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## vhaby

With a 4-day window between predicted rain events, I seeded a 50-50 mix of oats and rye Friday and Saturday. Received 0.65 inch rainfall on Sunday. Now seeding ryegrass onto moist soil and there is a 60% chance for rain on Thursday. This was the best rainfall opportunity I have seen this fall so I took the chance to get some winter forage growing.


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