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Ridgway, IL | This year I was lucky to be able to buy the non irrigated 40 acres my feed yard sits on from my family. I have planted it to corn, with the intention of chopping/bagging corn silage around the 2nd week of august. I am wondering about what to do for my following crop. We have a lot of growing season left after the corn silage will come off, so trying to figure out how best to use that. We will come in right after the silage is chopped with a heavy manure application and tillage. Corn silage will be made by a hired harvester and all wet forages must be bagged at this time. Here are my options as I see it:
1. Oats, planted right away to harvest later fall. I have 2 experiences planting fall oats. both irrigated, both first week September. 1 we grazed, the 2nd we wet wrapped the week before thanksgiving right as it was beginning to put a head on. I am wondering if coming in the 3rd week of aug planting will give us the extra growing season needed to get the heads out and more tons. Challenges with this plan are that it could be hard to get a quick stand established without irrigation and it might be more difficult to get a custom operator to come chop/bag for such a small job. Perks of this plan would include being better positioned to plant corn silage again in the spring.
2. Soft Winter Wheat, planted first week October (our fly free date and normal planting time). We have grown wheat acres for 28 of the last 30 years, so have best experience to draw from with this crop. would also fit our work load best because of other wheat acres. Might be difficult to find a custom chopper for this in the spring, who knows. Would follow with soybeans for cash crop.
3. Annual Rye Grass, planted basically any time. Lot of people grow this around here and we have some experience with it on irrigated acres. Really very similar benefits as the wheat, and would plan to chop/bag in the spring if at all possible. Wouldn't make as much tonnage as the wheat though right??? Would also follow with soybean cash crop.
What do you think?
Here are some pics of our last couple days work. We bales around 600 rounds of straw of a neighbor maybe 7-8 miles down the road. Mostly trouble free operations.
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Attachments
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 IMG_2322 (full).jpeg (201KB - 139 downloads)
IMG_2324 (full).jpeg (169KB - 120 downloads)
IMG_2327 (full).jpeg (213KB - 195 downloads)
IMG_2331 (full).jpeg (216KB - 125 downloads)
IMG_2332 (full).jpeg (161KB - 99 downloads)
IMG_2334 (full).jpeg (171KB - 124 downloads)
IMG_2335 (full).jpeg (184KB - 104 downloads)
IMG_2343 (full).jpeg (91KB - 135 downloads)
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forage planning
