# Anyone tried forage soybeans?



## CF-Farmer (Jan 10, 2012)

We are looking for cover crops on our farm this spring and forage soybeans came up as one. Been doing some checking and seems to have good feed value, like alfalfa, but can do it one year and go back to wheat. Wondering if anyone has tried them or been around them. Where we have the haying equipment, it would be a good fit and lots of cattle feeders looking for alternet hay to feed in ration. Looking for any advice or help before getting started or where guys get seed. Not many soybeans grown out west. Will be dryland and put in hay bales dry. Will go in summer fallow wheat rotation ground.


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## cornshucker (Aug 22, 2011)

We used to do them a lot when I was a teenager, hard to dry best mowed with a mo-co and leave a high stubble. great cattle feed cows, absolutely love them. If you round bale them make sure they are under cover as they will not shed water as good as grass hay if left out. Seeding rate should be about double as grain beans so you will not get as bigger stalk and more vegetation. We used to sow about 2 1/4 bushels per acre. Would probably still do it but deer population is hard on them.


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## prairie (Jun 20, 2008)

CF-Farmer, where are you located? Pleas add a location, as it can make a big difference on how others answer posts.

Most forage soybean seed I have sold has been for chopping, and some grazing. Although soybeans were original used in the US was for hay, they are better made into silage/baleage or grazed. They can be difficult to dry, and the leaves can be easily knocked off when raking. Also the newer forage varieties produce a large windrow, and depending on available equipment, raking can be difficult at times.


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## Waterway64 (Dec 2, 2011)

Prairie will they work in a mix with 70 day forage corn for grazing or silage? Do you have them available. And at what price? Do you have a business number?


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## CF-Farmer (Jan 10, 2012)

Sorry Prairie I thought it came up. I am in Northeast Oregon. Not many soybeans around here. We will cut with discbine machines and put in 3x4 bales. We have the equipment to put it up and handle the mass but will have to get it to dry. I have baled alfalfa and even sudan and sudan mix hay fairly wet and made it work. We use inoculant on our balers and let sit out in three's to let sweat. Makes good hay just have to work with it. A lot depends on the weather we are having at the time. This would be dryland so I wouldn't expect the tonnage way high.

Waterway64, I have seen some articles lately that are mixing forage soybeans and corn for grazing or silage. They say the soybeans will climb the corn and make good tonnage. Never tried it but seen the info while searching information.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Wife and son do about 35-40 acres of Soybeans and Brown Top Millet every year. This past season was a tough one but a window opened up and they all got cut and dried down quite well. The Millet was a tad too ripe in some fields.

Here's an open roll of Soybean and Millet hay. None of it has molded.










Mowing it.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Looks like a nice dense crop Grateful.

Seedway sells a sourghum sudangrass soybean mix. Have to try to convince my dad to try it i think it would make some great silage for heifers


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## MT hayer (Mar 1, 2014)

That does look good. I didn't know they made a forage soybean, What kind of feed values are you talking here? there are some mixes planted around here, but never that one. How close would seed be to me?


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

They thought about getting it tested but since they don't sell any of it what's the point, feed what you have ;-) My wife knows what type soybeans they are. I'll ask her later. She didn't fall asleep until 3am, kept hearing limbs crashing down. Just hope none get any fences.


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## CF-Farmer (Jan 10, 2012)

MT Hayer there is a guy selling them in Montana. His number is in Montana & is seed dealer for our area also. I will look up name and put on here. I couldn't find it this morning. 
The feed value I found on Internet was about equal to alfalfa. Good protein, adf, and relative feed value. 
Grateful11 what did you or how did you fertilize your soybeans? Just wondering what I would have to put on with them.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

My wife said the soybeans are Hutchinson. They plant right at 70lbs/acre at some strange recipe of so many bags of Millet to so many bags of Beans and mixes it together by hand in the drill, something her late Father taught her. They put out 15-15-15 fertilizer at 300lbs/acre. They drilled it in with JD BD1108 conventional drill with 7.5" spacing. As best we could figure it made about 3 tons/acre. One field got nothing but manure for fertilize and it did quite well also. She said she thought she paid $11/bushel for them at local farm, uncertified.

This is the field that only received manure for fertilizer. The Millet out done the Soybeans in this one.


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## MT hayer (Mar 1, 2014)

All right CF. I will be checking in to see if you find a number. Probably out of Billings? Some of the places I cut are in bad need of some renovation. I don't know if there is a best, but I believe any different crop would be better then old sod? There is some corn coming back in the country, but man there is some high inputs for it. Is there any other crops that aren't a common thing?


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## CF-Farmer (Jan 10, 2012)

MT the outfit is Mountain West Co op in Stevensville MT. 406-777-5441. They sell Eagle Seed. There web site is Eagleseed.com. I haven't called them but need to as well. Hope that helps.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

How would an oat soybean mix work? Im thinking that the oats would be mature before the soybeans though.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Grateful11 said:


> My wife said the soybeans are Hutchinson. They plant right at 70lbs/acre at some strange recipe of so many bags of Millet to so many bags of Beans and mixes it together by hand in the drill, something her late Father taught her. They put out 15-15-15 fertilizer at 300lbs/acre. They drilled it in with JD BD1108 conventional drill with 7.5" spacing. As best we could figure it made about 3 tons/acre. One field got nothing but manure for fertilize and it did quite well also. She said she thought she paid $11/bushel for them at local farm, uncertified.
> 
> This is the field that only received manure for fertilizer. The Millet out done the Soybeans in this one.


Looks like you can turn pretty sharp with that two point hitch


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Bgriffin856 said:


> How would an oat soybean mix work? Im thinking that the oats would be mature before the soybeans though.


 I don't know if that would work with oats being a cool season crop and soybeans being warm season. Here after the oats are harvested for either hay or grain the soybeans are then planted as a double crop.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Bgriffin856 said:


> Looks like you can turn pretty sharp with that two point hitch


The tractor will go past parallel with the front of mower and never affect the driveline or hit the tongue. If that makes sense, kinda hard to explain. That's the beauty of the swivel gearbox, Gyrodine they call it on the Kuhn.


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## astropilot (Jun 3, 2008)

How about This Eagle seed has two RR varieties of Forage soybean I plan on sowing in areas that I need to clean up. Its most foxtail and johnson grass. The price is about $85 per bag per acre. The big thing is to cut them early while the bean in the pod is green. The protein is around 24%. After the season I plan on sowing timothy behind the beans in the Fall. Being in Kentucky we have a large cattle population somewhere around 5th in the country. This is who I will be marketing the hay too.


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## CF-Farmer (Jan 10, 2012)

Astropilot what do you plan on seed rate per acre? I have been thinking around 40 to 50 pounds per acre. I like the RR trait as well. Good to clean up ground.


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

We always grew a Pioneer mix they marketed as Haybeans and Milo (dairy in SE Iowa). There wasn't a lot of milo in the bag, but enough to help with lodging. Beans could get up over 5 ft tall. As said by others, it is a PITA to dry down, at least in our humid climate it was.

They were very high protein, tonnage was decent. Not what you could get from something like sudan grass, but very acceptable. We were almost always double cropping behind wheat.

We always chopped or wrapped for baleage, only baled dry when no choice. The quality was always significantly lower when baled dry. If you can find someone to wrap for you, it would make great baleage.


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## Erock813 (Jun 3, 2008)

Rupp Seed sells a product of called Pro-Ton. Sorguhm/ forage soybeans/ forage peas. Tremendous yields. I would replace the sorghum with a Gene 6 /Brachytic Dwarf sorghum-sundangrass. Much better digestibility. I think ill try about 5 acres and see how it turns out.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

FarmerCline said:


> I don't know if that would work with oats being a cool season crop and soybeans being warm season. Here after the oats are harvested for either hay or grain the soybeans are then planted as a double crop.


We have seeded oats in June here before they did good so that's not a problem if you planted a mix in May i think it would do alright. Just the maturity might be different


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Grateful11 said:


> The tractor will go past parallel with the front of mower and never affect the driveline or hit the tongue. If that makes sense, kinda hard to explain. That's the beauty of the swivel gearbox, Gyrodine they call it on the Kuhn.


Never saw one in person. But i get what your saying that would be nice to have. Our 499 is nice having a hydro pump instead of a shaft makes for some sharp turning without grinding u joints.


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## astropilot (Jun 3, 2008)

CF-Farmer, They told me plan on a bag per acre (50lbs). For sowing, Its a lot like warm season grasses with the ground temperature +60 F, and plan to cut around august.


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