Abstract

Producing sufficient high quality forage throughout the year is becoming difficult given current economic and environmental pressures. Farmers are looking for strategies to improve yield and quality of their own forage to reduce the financial burden of purchasing feed off-farm. In addition, with increasing focus on managing farm nutrient balances for environmental reasons, farmers are also looking to decrease the importation of additional nutrients from feed onto their farms. One strategy for accomplishing this is utilizing winter grains, such as winter rye, as forage crops. These crops could be grazed or harvested in the fall to extend the grazing season, and in the spring providing early forage prior to planting corn silage. To better understand how to successfully integrate winter rye forage into corn silage cropping systems, the University of Vermont Northwest Crops and Soils Program initiated a trial altering winter rye planting dates in combination with varying corn maturities.

Keywords

Vermont, University of Vermont

Publication Date

2017

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