Extending the Grazing Season
in Fairfield County, Ohio, utilizing annual and biannual crops
The oat field above was no-tilled into wheat stubble on 7/10/06. It was seeded with 64 pounds of "feed" oats from a local feed store. At planting, 27 pounds of nitrogen, 69 pounds of P, and 31 pounds of K was applied. This amount of P was likely not required, but was available in this fertilizer mix that remained from corn planting. As indicated, the photo above was taken September 27, 79 days after planting. The field was baled shortly after and yielded ~5 ton of ~ 15% protein dry matter per acre.
Here's a link to a pictorial cronology of a 'Forage Oat' Field in '07
This field of Aroostock cereal rye (above) was flown onto standing soybeans at the Hoover Farm on September 5, 2003 at a rate of 100 pounds per acre. The soybeans were harvested on 9/19/03. The photo above was taken on 10/23/03 when the rye was standing with and average of about 6 inches of top growth. No fertilizer had been applied since the seed was flown on.
The following two pictures exhibit oats growing in the Leitnaker's corn field.
On August 26, 80 pounds of treated, certified Armour oats were flown onto standing corn at the Leitnaker Farm. The photos above and below were both taken in the same field on October 23, 2003. Note that the oats have an average height in excess of 10 inches.
On November 20, 2003, Doug and Cheryl Majors hosted area producers for an Extended Winter Grazing Pasture Walk (photos below).
On August 26, 80 pounds of treated, certified Armour oats were flown onto standing corn at the Majors' Farm. Total cost for the aerial seeding operation, plus the seed oats was $21.98 per acre. The corn was harvested on October 25, and the photo above was taken on November 10, 2003. The oats and corn residue are being effectively utilized via strip grazing (photo below).
Go to this data sheet link for a look at the economics outline of the Majors' extended grazing demonstration.
This link will take you to photos and detail of our first efforts with summer seeded oats at the Wolfingers in 2002.
This link goes to summary data and discussion from the summer seeded oats at the Wolfingers in 2002.
Data summary of 2003 summer seeded oat projects.