A website from UGA Cooperative Extension

Today we were looking at triticale and oats. We looked at fields grown for grain and grazing. He made a comment about something I observed earlier this week in small grain: some small grain is showing obvious symptoms of drought when others are not.

We are needing rain pretty bad right now. When you look at different forages, however, you’ll see that many species don’t seem to be affected differently. We have good chances for rain next Wednesday, just ahead of the cold weather, and I hope we get it. Here is how our different small grains are looking:

Rye

Wrens Abruzzi rye planted for grazing. Leaves rolling due to dry weather.

Of all the small grain planted, this rye was one of the first planted. It was the first planted on this farm but looks the worst of all. I looked at this field earlier this week and noticed the leaves folded and signs of drought.

Triticale

Triticale 342 planted for grain. Planted November 13th.

Above is Triticale 342 planted November 13th. It was planted at 93 lb/A with no pre-plant fertilizer. It was chiseled as deep as the tractor would run. It has about 3 leaves, not yet tillering. Looks very good for lack of rain.

Triticale 342 planted for grazing. It has a thick blade and resembles oats.

Here is the same variety of triticale planted for grazing. It’s planted on an upland soil and shows no stress from lack of rain. Cows are already grazing. You can see some of the trees behind this field. The January 22nd tornado went straight across this field (from lower right to upper left). It was planted in oats with a good stand for grazing during the tornado. Mr. Mark said it took 2 weeks to get out the large debris. They then released the cows back in this pasture. Once the cows ate it back down, they spent the same amount of time picking up small debris (boards with nails, fence wire etc.) that you couldn’t see initially.

Triticale 342 planted for grain. Planted on November 11th

Here is some more triticale 342 planted on November 11th with 20-20-60-5 pre-plant. The only stress is a little thinness coming from the early morning pine tree shade.

Oats

Horizon 270 oats planted for grain. Planted on November 14th
Wild Raddish coming up in oats. Oats at 3 leaf are safe for Harmony Extra herbicide

Here is oats planted for grain also at 93 lb /A. With no pre-plant fertilizer, it had 7/10″ of rain 4 days before it was planted. It took 12 days before it cracked the soil. It was also chiseled as deep as the plow would pull. You wouldn’t think it was dry, though.

The only issue here is the raddish. Since we are timely on application, we’re going to go ahead and do a Harmony Extra. It won’t kill all of it, but it’s better than waiting full tiller where we can use MCPA or 2,4-D. We’ll definitely have to come back at full tiller with either of those.