Dan Olson is the owner of Forage Innovations and is truly passionate about growing great feed for cows while also improving soil health. As a Forage Specialist, he works with dairies across the country to grow forage in many different environments and with different land challenges. He shares an overview on multi-species plantings, and where they fit for both forages and cover crops. With weather challenges across the country, Dan says some seed options are going to be in short supply.
While cover crops make sense for soil health, they do add extra cost in both seed and labor for farms. Dan says that using multi species cover crops can help make fiscal sense when they can be used as forage to be fed to cows. With many by-products becoming more expensive, or harder to get, using different blends of grasses, small grains, legumes and more can be a lower cost option by producing lots of tonnage on fewer acres to replace those ingredients.
Multispecies doesn’t need to be complicated, Dan shares that even just using two varieties of the same plant can have benefits. From there, species blends can really be matched to weather conditions for the area they are planted in. One benefit of a more complex mixture is the ability to bring in species that do well in cooler weather, extending the growing period on available acres.
With the wild weather this year, particularly in the Northwest where many of these seed crops are grown, there has been some difficulty finding the varieties that farmers are looking for. While some seed has been able to be imported and transportation costs have started to come down, the situation in Ukraine has also caused issues. Dan says that overall corn seed availability looks good, but says there may be some varieties that aren’t available or harder to find.
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