Waiting for good weather

If Mother Nature would cooperate, some growers could be putting in oats, pastures and hay ground right now.

An extreme shortage of forages in the country is peaking interest in new seedings.

“We are seeing extreme interest in getting new seedings of hay fields and taking care of those pastures that had a pretty rough graze last year,” said Doug Hanson, forage and cover crop lead with ProHarvest Seeds.

Cover Crop Update:

When it comes to cover crops, ProHarvest has been utilizing them with forage systems for quite a few years now. Then around 8 or 10 years ago, growers started putting cover crops into their corn and soybean rotations. It was hard to see the benefits early on but now we know cover crops help with many factors like weed control.

“One of the things that I even found hard to believe early on is that we are seeing an increase in organic matter in those fields,” explained Hanson. “It’s not something you are necessarily going to sell the farm for today, but at least we are not losing organic matter.”

ProHarvest seed specialists and agronomists utilize cover crops and work with different systems to see how they can help an operation.

For more information, contact Hanson at the ProHarvest Seeds office at 815-698-2204 or on his cell phone at 815-382-6684.