Cover crop wheat

[poorboys 151]

Has anyone chopped and bagged wheat and made a good feed first year with it . I have equipment to chop but would have to rent a wrapper and hired baled what is best option

 

[rustred]

Why not cut and bale it. Be the cheapest way.

 

[trackrat]

They bale a lot of wheat here in north Texas

 

[DanielW]

You're just talking about chopping and bagging for silage? Chopping cereals for silage is pretty common practice. The chap who trucks our cattle fills several bunker silos with chopped cereals of one sort or another each year. Just chop/bag at the right stage (don't let it get too far along).

I'd be baling and wrapping it if it were mine, but only because that's what I have the equipment for. Or just cut it before it heads and and dry-bale it. No different than a grassy hay (well, probably a smidge higher protein than most grasses).

 

[addisonfarms]

DanielW, cutting and dry-baling wheat or other cereals, would you do it like you do regular grass baling? Cut, let it dry to right moisture then bale?

 

[rustred]

DanielW, cutting and dry-baling wheat or other cereals, would you do it like you do regular grass baling? Cut, let it dry to right moisture then bale?

no different , just make sure its dry. hay is hay . with them wrapped bales you can have moisture way up in the 40's., not baled hay.

 

[poorboys 151]

Alright looks like baling and wrapping is the preferred method

You're just talking about chopping and bagging for silage? Chopping cereals for silage is pretty common practice. The chap who trucks our cattle fills several bunker silos with chopped cereals of one sort or another each year. Just chop/bag at the right stage (don't let it get too far along).

I'd be baling and wrapping it if it were mine, but only because that's what I have the equipment for. Or just cut it before it heads and and dry-bale it. No different than a grassy hay (well, probably a smidge higher protein than most grasses).

around here baling and wrapping is the most common practice but it will cost $20 per bale for that as I don’t have the equipment
If I did decide to chop before it heads out how long should it cure before chopping

 

[Texasmark]

They bale a lot of wheat here in north Texas

Where? Been living on this farm since 1979 and never saw it baled. Around here they graze it during the winter, pulling the cows off and spraying Green Bugs in January (last week in January is usually dry, making it convenient to get machinery on the field) and cut wheat (grain) in late spring-early summer. Putting the cows on it in the winter feeds the cows and I am told it makes the plants sprout new shoots that result in an increase in the wheat production.....win-win deal.

They used to burn the stubble off the fields but quit (reason unknown...probably County ban on burning outside) and now plow it into the ground for soil percolation improvement. I never planted it. Planted Rye Grass instead and baled that in late spring....when I had cows they did graze it like the w-h-e-a t-e-r-s (AI stubbornness in my Apple computer's software) did on wheat fields.

 

[Harold Hubbard]

Never done wheat, but I have dry baled oats and rye. Worst trouble with that is the plentiful seed in the bales really attracts rodents. The chew the strings for entertainment, then the bales fall apart when you go to feed them.

 

[used red MN]

If I did decide to chop before it heads out how long should it cure before chopping

I take it you feed this to your own livestock? I would suggest you get a moisture meter and determine when the material is at the proper moisture to chop. I think green wheat fodder is a bit more tricky to get it to ferment properly into good feed. When I search hay moisture meters some come up for around $30 and some are over $200. It looks like maybe the more expensive ones have a single long probe that looks like it might be for stabbing in a round bale. Don’t know where you are do you ever consult with your Extension office? They can be a very good source of information for these kinds of questions.

 

[joeysmith]

Here if we get a late killing freeze it gets cut an baled.
If its used as a cover crop for brome or something its usually combined for the crop

 

[moresmoke]

Where? Been living on this farm since 1979 and never saw it baled. Around here they graze it during the winter, pulling the cows off and spraying Green Bugs in January (last week in January is usually dry, making it convenient to get machinery on the field) and cut wheat (grain) in late spring-early summer. Putting the cows on it in the winter feeds the cows and I am told it makes the plants sprout new shoots that result in an increase in the wheat production.....win-win deal.

They used to burn the stubble off the fields but quit (reason unknown...probably County ban on burning outside) and now plow it into the ground for soil percolation improvement. I never planted it. Planted Rye Grass instead and baled that in late spring....when I had cows they did graze it like the w-h-e-a t-e-r-s (AI stubbornness in my Apple computer's software) did on wheat fields.

Most of what I have seen baled in North Texas is after a hailstorm. That said, anywhere there are large dairies in that area they chop a lot of winter forage. Mostly triticale these days, wheat works but doesn’t yield as well. Grow triticale over the winter and follow it with corn, milo, or cotton in the summer.

 

[poorboys 151]

Where? Been living on this farm since 1979 and never saw it baled. Around here they graze it during the winter, pulling the cows off and spraying Green Bugs in January (last week in January is usually dry, making it convenient to get machinery on the field) and cut wheat (grain) in late spring-early summer. Putting the cows on it in the winter feeds the cows and I am told it makes the plants sprout new shoots that result in an increase in the wheat production.....win-win deal.

They used to burn the stubble off the fields but quit (reason unknown...probably County ban on burning outside) and now plow it into the ground for soil percolation improvement. I never planted it. Planted Rye Grass instead and baled that in late spring....when I had cows they did graze it like the w-h-e-a t-e-r-s (AI stubbornness in my Apple computer's software) did on wheat fields.

South central ky is where I live just trying to find other options besides corn for silage due to high input cost

 

[used red MN]

South central ky is where I live just trying to find other options besides corn for silage due to high input cost

Beside fertilizer what inputs are high for corn? Have you looked into forage sorghum? It is very drought resistant if that is a concern. Maybe the inputs would be nearly the same.

 

[cjunrau]

South central ky is where I live just trying to find other options besides corn for silage due to high input cost

I would pencil out he cost very carefully. corn has way more yield than wheat per $ spent in my books. Now I do not fertilize my corn like everyone else. I spend max $100 acre. I get close to 8 ton per acre. Not huge yield but wheat and oats was giving me 1-1.5 ton an acre. for me hands down the corn came on top. I need less acres for corn and the rest can be combined and sold as grain. That way i plant more incase of less rain and still have enough feed.

 

[ss55]

South central ky is where I live just trying to find other options besides corn for silage due to high input cost

If you expect fertilizer prices to drop in the future, for corn you might be able to cut back on fertilizer for a year or two. If you switch crops P and K will stay in the soil, N will leach out of the root zone .

 

[Texasmark]

Never done wheat, but I have dry baled oats and rye. Worst trouble with that is the plentiful seed in the bales really attracts rodents. The chew the strings for entertainment, then the bales fall apart when you go to feed them.

They pee on the wire and eat the string. Years ago, learning about what works and what doesn't, I did plant oats one year and weren't freeze resistant. Didn't do that again. Ryegrass and wheat are.

 

[DanielW]

They pee on the wire and eat the string. Years ago, learning about what works and what doesn't, I did plant oats one year and weren't freeze resistant. Didn't do that again. Ryegrass and wheat are.

Yup. If you're dry-baling cereals, you want to cut it prior to heading. Two years ago I had a field of winter rye (cereal rye, not ryegrass) as a cover. The original purpose for it was just to hold the sandy soil together over winter and till it back in the spring (it was a very steep field that's prone to washing out in spring). But it came along so good and we always need straw, so I decided to let it ripen, cut with the haybine, and bale for straw. I don't think I'll ever do that again. Every bale had at least one dead mouse inside by the end of winter. And the barn hadn't had that many mice running around in it since the days we used to thresh in there and blow the grain into an open granary room.

The racoons also came into the barn much more than usual that year - I suspect because they eat both mice and grain, and thus found ample food opportunity there (as well as some nice straw bales to tear apart and make nests in).