Winter Hardy Cereal Cover Crops for Spring Grazing in Nebraska

Abstract Soybean harvest leaves little residue, potentially subjecting the soil to negative environmental impacts. Additionally, integrated livestock producers with crops and cattle identified a need to fill early spring forage deficiencies. Planting winter-hardy cereal cover crops after soybean harvest provides ground cover until the next cash crop is planted and has potential for early spring grazing before perennial pastures are ready. A 3-year study was conducted near Mead, Nebraska to evaluate the grazing potential of winter wheat, winter triticale, and cereal rye when planted after soybean harvest. A 7.3-ha field was split into nine 0.81-h paddocks and paddocks were then randomly assigned to a small cereal species (n = 3 paddocks per treatment), then divided further into 2, 0.4 ha paddocks to allow for rotational grazing within the assigned paddock. Growing steers were stratified by body weight (BW) and randomly assigned to paddock with 6 steers per paddock in years 1 and 2, and 5 steers per paddock in year 3. Steers were limit-fed at 2% of BW to equalize gut fill and weighed before and at the conclusion of grazing. Grazing was initiated when a paddock reached 13 cm. The initial BW did not differ among treatments (P > 0.05) with steers weighing 303, 335, and 372 kg in years 1 through 3, respectively. The final BW did not differ among treatments (P > 0.05). There was a treatment by year interaction (P ≤ 0.01) for average daily gain (ADG). There were no differences (P > 0.05) in ADG among treatments in year 1 (1.9 kg/d) or year 3 (1.3 kg/d). However, in year 2, steers grazing rye gained more (P < 0.01) at 1.4 kg than wheat (0.83 kg) and triticale (0.67 kg), which did not differ (P > 0.05). There were no differences (P > 0.05) among treatments for animal unit months (AUM) per hectare. Year 1 provided the most (P < 0.01) grazing at 5.1 AUM/ha, year 2 provided the least (P < 0.01) at 2.4 AUM/ha, and year 3 was intermediate at 3.1 AUM/ha. For gain per hectare (GPH), there were no differences (P > 0.05) among treatments. Steers in year 1 had greater (P < 0.01) GPH (390 kg/ha) than subsequent years, with year 2 (93 kg/ha) being less (P < 0.01) than year 3 (151 kg/ha). For all 3 years, there were no differences among treatments in pre-graze (P > 0.05) or post-graze biomass (P > 0.05). These data suggest that during early spring there are no major differences in the grazing potential and growing cattle performance for wheat, rye, or triticale in eastern Nebraska.