Double crop Options

The Questions

A farmer wants to plant double crop soybeans this week. He doesn't expect to harvest the crop for grain or hay, but wants to pasture beef cows on it later this summer. What would be your recommendation?  Is it too late to plant sorghum-sudangrass to get summer or fall pasture?  We are pretty dry right now, although part of our corn and soybeans are growing well. Some areas are stressed considerably by dry soil.  The farmer asking this question is in an area where crops are growing well.

Any insight on this question would be appreciated.

My Answers

It is my opinion that the producer would be better off seeding
sudangrass, sorghum-sudangrass or pearl millet than soybeans because: yield will be better better drought tolerance forage quality will be very satisfactory for beef cattle and  labeled herbicides for the purpose of weed control for all of these forages is limited, but more so for soybeans. If the producer is concerned about prussic acid with the use of the sorghum species when it is stressed (freeze damage or severe drought) then pearl millet would be a good choice as there is no prussic acid issue with it. Another forage to consider for fall grazing would be forage turnips.

Information can be found in AY-263.

Back to Forage Issues

Keith Johnson
Professor of Agronomy and Forage Crops Specialist
1150 Lilly Hall of Life Sciences
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1150
phone: 765-494-4800
fax: 765-496-2926
e-mail:johnsonk@purdue.edu