Description
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) sets aside hectares to be permanent grassland and keeps those acres out of rotation for agricultural use. In drought conditions, these acres open to emergency haying and grazing. CRP hay is harvested at the end of the primary nesting season, mid to late summer, therefore this is a very mature product for stored forage. Many beef cow producers in the Midwest feed CRP hay in the last third of gestation until cattle can be turned out for spring grazing. Data was obtained from CRP hay samples to evaluate forage nutritive value and supplementation needs relative to gestating beef cow requirements. Crude protein, ADF, aNDF, and NDFD48 ranges and means all indicated that overall CRP hay forage quality is poor. In fact, 90.07% (n = 508) of the samples would require producers feeding gestating beef cows to provide extra supplementation based on crude protein, TDN, or both. These results show that if beef producers must feed CRP hay, then laboratory analysis will be a valuable tool for determining the precise level of supplementation required to meet beef cow nutritional requirements. However, these results paired with recent wildlife management studies show that grazing at reduced stocking rates during nesting season may be the best alternative to optimize forage quality utilization on CRP acres as well as provide the benefit of more variable grassland habitat to increase avian species diversity on these lands.
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Conservation Reserve Program Hay Quality from Producer Submissions to a Commercial Laboratory in Central Nebraska
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) sets aside hectares to be permanent grassland and keeps those acres out of rotation for agricultural use. In drought conditions, these acres open to emergency haying and grazing. CRP hay is harvested at the end of the primary nesting season, mid to late summer, therefore this is a very mature product for stored forage. Many beef cow producers in the Midwest feed CRP hay in the last third of gestation until cattle can be turned out for spring grazing. Data was obtained from CRP hay samples to evaluate forage nutritive value and supplementation needs relative to gestating beef cow requirements. Crude protein, ADF, aNDF, and NDFD48 ranges and means all indicated that overall CRP hay forage quality is poor. In fact, 90.07% (n = 508) of the samples would require producers feeding gestating beef cows to provide extra supplementation based on crude protein, TDN, or both. These results show that if beef producers must feed CRP hay, then laboratory analysis will be a valuable tool for determining the precise level of supplementation required to meet beef cow nutritional requirements. However, these results paired with recent wildlife management studies show that grazing at reduced stocking rates during nesting season may be the best alternative to optimize forage quality utilization on CRP acres as well as provide the benefit of more variable grassland habitat to increase avian species diversity on these lands.
