June 24, 2011

This content requires Flash Download the free Flash Player now!

Each year excessive rain, floods, hail, tornadoes, and other calamities of nature create the need to replant crops, often later in the season than you would like.

In some cases replanting a grain crop may be nearly impossible due to herbicide carryover, the late planting date, or lack of seed. As a result, annual emergency forage crops might be your only choice.

Before selecting any crop to replant as forage, be sure to check the label of the herbicides used previously. Many herbicides have restrictions and limitations on grazing or feeding forage grown in their presence.

In addition, unless you only used glyphosate, other herbicides can injure forages. Many herbicides for corn and milo will injure pearl millet, foxtail millet, and teff.

Sudangrass, forage sorghum, and sorghum-sudan hybrids will tolerate moderate levels of atrazine; and safened seed can be used if Dual or Bicep-like herbicides containing s-metolachlor had been applied. These sorghums also tolerate most herbicides labeled for use with grain sorghum.

Another possible emergency forage crop is short-season corn as silage or even drilling bin-run corn for late season pasture or hay, especially if corn herbicides eliminate other possibilities.

Soybean herbicides other than glyphosate cause even bigger problems for replanting to forages. All summer grasses are sensitive to most soybean herbicides. Sunflowers for silage and soybeans for hay or silage are among the few alternatives compatible with soybean herbicide carryover.

Nobody likes to replant, but if you must, select a forage that is compatible with your herbicides and livestock.

Bruce Anderson
Extension Forage Specialist