Search

With turning the calendar to June, now is the time to be seeding warm-season annual forages like sorghum, sorghum-sudangrass, sudangrass, millets, and teff. These forages can help to fill in the gap with the summer slump or provide some extra forage when your perennial forage supply may be short. Below are some helpful reminders on establishing and utilizing warm season annual forages.

One option to consider in fields with severe storm damage with no or limited yield potential is annual forages. This option may especially be of interest to livestock producers who could utilize the forage or may be short on forage or feed as a result of the storm damage. The following recommendations are meant to serve as a starting point for those considering an annual forage in storm damaged fields.

Limited rainfall and the warmer temperatures causing crop stress, herbicide injury in soybeans, soybean gall midge, and Japanese beetles were some of the common issues or concerns that ISU Extension field agronomists saw in fields across the state this last week. Read on to see what’s happening in specific regions across the state.

Northwest Iowa

With a growing number of cover crop acres across the state of Iowa, some producers are looking to cover crops to help extend their grazing season. While cover crops have the potential to be an extra forage source and reduce feed costs, there are challenges with using cover crops as a forage source. This ICM Blog shares some best management practices complied from a survey of producers who have prior experiences with grazing cover crops along with what we’ve learned in our grazing cover crop studies to help you get the most out of grazing cover crops.