NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
March 30, 2000
Livestock producers should take a close look at forage needs and how forage will be used before planting annual forage crops like oats and barley, specialists at North Dakota State University say.
"Do you want your harvested protein in a concentrated package of higher quality forage or spread out in a greater amount of lower quality forage? That question relates directly to how the feeder intends to use the forage, and the answer may help determine the forage crop to plant," says Chip Poland, a livestock specialist at NDSU's Dickinson Research Extension Center.
In research at the center, Poland and agronomist Pat Carr are studying the forage quality and yield potential of barley and oat varieties. In general, they found that when harvested at soft dough, barley produces a superior quality forage and oat produces more forage. Oat varieties produced an average of 30 percent more dry matter per acre than barley varieties. Barley varieties contained about 30 percent more crude protein. The net result was that both crops yielded about the same amount of crude protein per acre.
"If you're feeding dry beef cows, the quantity of forage is probably more important than quality because their nutrient requirements are relatively low," Poland explains. "But for lactating cows, backgrounding calves or replacement heifers, the quality of forage becomes more important. In these situations, where production is important, increased forage quality usually means fewer supplements will need to be purchased to balance the diet."
Carr and Poland also found that barley and oat varieties marketed as forage types tended to produce more total forage with very little impact on forage quality. "If you know you're going to harvest the crop as forage, you need to balance any potential increase in seed cost for a forage-type variety against this increase in yield," Poland notes.
The research was funded by the North Dakota Barley Council and the North Dakota Agricultural Products Utilization Commission and supports earlier work at NDSU and in Canada that showed similar results. The study included three forage barleys: Haybet, Westford and Horsford; three two-rowed grain barleys: Conlon, Logan and Stark; three six-rowed grain barleys: Foster, Robust and Stander; three forage oat varieties: Mammoth, Celsia and Triple Crown; and two grain oat varieties: Paul and Whitestone.
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Source: Chip Poland (701) 483-2078
Editor: Tom Jirik (701) 231-9629