Cashing in on money-making forages focus of seminar

Choosing forages that extend the grazing season while saving producers extra expense harvesting and packaging hay is a central topic of the Indiana Forage Council's annual meeting and seminar. The meeting begins at 4 p.m. (EST) Feb. 16 at Cornerstone Hall, a banquet facility located off Jim Day Road near Indiana 56, Salem, Ind.

A 6 p.m. buffet dinner, keynote speaker and producer panel also are planned. Dinner is $7 for council members and $10 for non-members. Attendance at the annual meeting is not a requirement to attend the dinner or seminar.

The meeting's theme is "Money-Making Annual Forages," said Keith Johnson, Purdue University forage specialist and secretary-treasurer of the council.

"Any time we can have an animal out grazing in a field instead of making the forage ourselves, it saves money," Johnson said.

"There are places within forage production for annual forages. One example might be where we plant a crop and have some grazing in the fall and early winter following corn silage. Another example would be planting an annual crop like winter wheat or winter rye after soybean harvest. That should supply us with forage grazing opportunities in the spring and the possibility of making hay or silage in the spring as well."

Annual forages also provide safe ways to move into new hay crops.

"Another place where annual forages make sense is where an individual wants to transition from an old alfalfa crop to a new alfalfa crop," Johnson said. "There's the concern of an allelopathic effect, which is the negative growing effect of a previous crop on the next crop. In a case such as this, old alfalfa can have a deleterious effect on new alfalfa seedings. We can break the cycle of concern by planting a forage crop that might have some use, be it forage turnips or summer annual grasses like sorghum-sudangrass and pearl millet."

The meeting's featured speaker is Cliff Schuette, a cow-calf producer from Breese, Ill.

"Cliff has done an exceptional job of utilizing annual forages following row crop production, permitting more grazing to extend the grazing season," Johnson said. "What Cliff has been able to do by utilizing these annuals is to keep cow feed costs extremely reasonable. In the last eight years, he has spent from $58 to $150 per cow, and that is a very low cost compared to most producers."

The producer panel includes Indiana cow-calf operators Paul Hirt of Decatur County, Roger Dale Robinson of Orange County and Norbert Schaefer of Jefferson County.

The council meeting runs concurrent with the National Farm Machinery Show, which takes place Feb. 15-18 in nearby Louisville, Ky. Livestock producers are invited to attend the Indiana Forage Council meeting on their way to, or returning from, the Louisville show, Johnson said.

"Any producer whose goal is to allow the animals to harvest as much of the feed as possible or who haven't utilized annual forages in the past ought to consider attending this meeting," he said.

For meeting/dinner reservations, contact Lisa Metts at (765) 494-4783 or by e-mail at lmetts1@purdue.edu. Reservation deadline is Feb. 8.

Additional information is available on the council's Web site. A meeting brochure also appears on the Purdue Forage Information Web page.

Writer: Steve Leer, (765) 494-8415, sleer@purdue.edu

Source: Keith Johnson, (765) 494-4800, johnsonk@purdue.edu

Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722;
Beth Forbes, forbes@purdue.edu
Agriculture News Page

Note to Journalists: Other farm-related story ideas are available at Purdue Agriculture's Farming 2006 Web site.

Related Web site:
Purdue University Department of Agronomy

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