Using Annuals

Knowledge Nuggets

• Cereal crops can supplement and complement perennial pasture in the same year that they are seeded.

• Winter cereals and spring cereals are very compatible when grown together. Spring cereals provide a high initial growth while winter cereals begin growth slower than spring cereals but regrow better throughout the grazing season.

• The best spring cereals to use are oats, barley or spring triticale. The best winter cereals to use are fall rye, winter wheat, winter triticale or rye grass.

• Winter cereals may be fall seeded and fall grazed, or overwintered and grazed in the spring. When planning to overwinter a cereal crop, winter hardiness becomes important. Fall rye is by far the most winter hardy, followed by winter triticale and then winter wheat. Winter cereals can also be seeded in the spring and used in the year of seeding. If kept into the next year, spring-seeded winter cereals have significantly lower hardiness than when seeded in the fall.

• When grazed, spring cereals are difficult to keep in a vegetative state because the plants want to produce seed in the year of seeding causing lower pasture forage productivity. However, spring cereals are better than winter cereals at producing top growth early in the spring providing early pasture in the year of seeding.

• Spring seeded pasture, with 20 - 25 lb/ac of spring oats or barley added to the 100 - 110 lb/ac of winter cereal will be available for grazing earlier than a winter cereal seeded alone. Depending on growing conditions, mixtures with oats or barley allow one to two weeks earlier grazing.

• Winter cereals also provide excellent late fall pasture when seeded with a spring cereal silage or greenfeed crop. Once the main crop is harvested in late summer for greenfeed of silage, the winter cereals soon become a prominent crop for late fall grazing.

• Livestock will graze the spring cereals until the winter cereals are growing well. Grazing of spring cereals should begin before they reach the boot stage. By the time spring cereals are grazed twice in rotation, the winter cereals will be well-established.

• Grazing of the spring cereals declines as they begin to produce seed heads and the vigorously growing winter cereals take over as the main source of pasture.

• Matching the appropriate species of annual cereals to the specific climate and soil conditions is critical to achieving an economic stand of early summer feed.