As the state lies in wait for any sign of an opening to the season it is a good opportunity to consider what agronomic management decisions you will employ this season. Grazing cereal crops during late autumn/ early winter is a great tool to help meet the livestock feed deficit. It may be a tool you have never tried, and with high fertiliser prices it may just be the option for you.

Grazing cereals has been practiced for many years with good results, although perhaps with limited understanding. Depending on the variety, cereal crops can be successfully grazed anywhere from late emergence to when the first node is detectable on the main stem without incurring a significant yield penalty. This can provide a window of six to eight weeks or more of grazing if managed well. There are many possible strategies of grazing crops, including rotational or cell grazing, set stocking, or strip grazing with a hotwire. The latter tends to work best as most of the available feed is consumed and the paddock grazed evenly.

Exactly how much feed is available depends on the cereal variety, sowing rate and seedling vigour. Some varieties produce much early bulk and grazing can actually be a canopy management tool. Other varieties are less vigorous although usually do not result in much yield penalty at all. Green cereal crops are high quality stock feed, and the stock should do very well on them, especially if low-cost mineral supplements are provided.

In the Upper North Farming Systems trials in 2007 at Warnertown and Morchard, the amount of feed available was much higher when sown early. These ‘dry sown’ plots germinated on moisture from the previous month and were well established by the time the remainder of the trial was sown three weeks later. They maintained their upper edge for the whole season, highlighting the benefits of sowing early. The dry sown plots at Morchard were grazed twice (denoted by *). At Warnertown dry matter was around 1 t/ha for Maritime barley. The higher seeding rates (100 kg/ha) produced up to two kilograms more feed than the standard sowing rate (60 kg/ha) with extra N applied. All plots received DAP at 50 kg/ha and +N plots received urea as well at 43 kg/ha at sowing.

Table 1: Dry Matter for Correll wheat and Maritime barley after 4 and 7 weeks’ growth in the Upper North

The gross margin for grain yield can sometimes be slightly lower once grazed but consider the value of the feed, especially at a time when it is really needed. So in 2008, consider grazing cereals to cover your late autumn feed gap.

AUTHOR: Charlton Jeisman, Farming Systems Consultant, Rural Solutions SA
CONTACT: Charlton Jeisman, Rural Solutions SA/ PIRSA Jamestown Office, Telephone: 08 8664 1408, Email: jeisman.charlton@saugov.sa.gov.au