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| I'm no expert, but I've been growing some for the past 5 years. You won't get the same yield as corn silage. You can't plant it until June and you will only get 2 cuttings. I *think* a 7 ton/acre yield (total of 2 crops) is normal.
I don't think you would want to go whole-hog on it. It's much more susceptible to accumulating nitrates than corn. It does do well in the drought, BUT you are more likely to end up with haylage that it too high in nitrates to feed it to pregnant cows without blending it somehow.
The major benefit over corn is that since you can't plant it until June and it's done by September, you can double crop. You could plant winter wheat (or something along those lines) into the sudan stubble and then get a crop of that at the end of May the next year, then go to Sudan and get two crops of that (and repeat). The only way I've been using it is I take the first crop of hay off of my worst hay field, then plant sudan, and follow with oats/alfalfa the next year.
Fertilizer recommendations are the same as silage corn. It needs lots of N.
Seed is pretty cheap.
Is it cost effective over silage corn for cows? I don't know for sure. I know it is for me since I don't grow any corn and I can harvest with my hay equipment to make balage.
Edited by tjdub 2/15/2013 23:09
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Sorghum/Sudangrass for silage in NE Iowa
