Annual ryegrass stockpiled for fall grazing is being evaluated as a tool to lengthen the grazing season, lowering the cost of feeding cattle. Research at NCROC has shown ryegrass remains nutritious well into December. Current efforts are focused on methods of utilizing stockpiled ryegrass efficiently. Grazing standing ryegrass is being compared to cutting ryegrass and grazing the windrows. Cutting ryegrass into windrows reduces the amount of forage that can be trampled during grazing, however, there are the additional costs of cutting and raking. Ryegrass for the research was stockpiled beginning in mid-August. Half of the pasture was cut and raked into windrows in late October, while the other half was left standing.
Grazing was initiated on standing and windrowed ryegrass beginning November 7th and will continue for about 30 days. Thirty two mature, pregnant beef cows were divided into four groups based on age, weight, body condition score and number of days pregnant. Two of the groups will graze different sections of windrowed forage, and the other two will graze separate sections of standing, stockpiled forage. All forage will be rotationally grazed, with cows being offered about three days of forage at a time based on forage dry matter yield and cow dry matter intake requirements. Grazed areas will be sampled for forage utilization efficiency and quality. Cow performance will be evaluated by body condition scoring and measuring body weight. Information from this evaluation will be available in about February 2008.
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