WHEAT, VALUABLE PASTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 10

WHEAT, VALUABLE PASTURE.

Necessity is the mother of invention,says Ralph Kennedy, of Kentucky, in Hoard’s Dairyman. This is well illustrated in the use of wheat pasture in the plains States. In the early days of farming there dry prairie grass was bountiful in fall, winter, and spring, but fences were not. Wheat fields were generally green during all this time, and green feed made more milk than dry. The family milk cows as well as other stock naturally drifted to the wheat fields. Now the pasture return from fall-sown wheat is counted on as a regular part of the farm income on many wheat farms. Wheat pasture produced more cash from milk and beef and saved more herds from dissolution in 1918 possibly than ever before. There are many beginners in the purebred dairy and beef cattle business who would have been forced to sell recentlyacquired stock had not wheat pasture been abundant.

“In the fall cf 1918 we planted 100 acres of wheat and 15 acres of rye,” says a dairv farmer near Topeka. “We planted about- two bushels of wheat to the acre. We did this with the idea that wheat would make a heavy stand so we could pasture it heavy. Most wheat planted in this locality grew very rank, and you never saw such a stand. It was as heavy as blue grass pasture. We turned 80 head of purebred Ilo’stein cows and heifers on it. They had pasture for three months, and we produced more milk on this wheat than on any before or since; and. besides, the cattle never looked better. We took them

off about the Ist of April, and the wheat wo harvested averaged 22 bushels to tho acre. There is no question but that wheat pasture has rye pasture skinned a mile for milk production, if you get as good a stand of wheat as you do of rye. One must be very careful in pasturing wheat, and not. have the cows on too long at first or it will bloat them. This is for the first day or so, then they can go on full time.” Dairymen the State over have had similar experiences. Whore the pasturing is done in the fall there is not a great deal of reduction in yield of grain at harvest time. In fact, most men in Central and Western

Kansas consider that a man is foolish not to pasture in the fall if he has anything: to use that way. He is then sure of a 6 art of the return on the planted crop 'airymen, however, do not all find their cattle in as good shape when taken off as indicated by the one quoted above. It may be taken as a general fact that cattle giving a heavy milk flow on wheat pasture are drawing on body tissues and stored energy for the fat, and will be in a weaker condition at the end of a prolonged pasture period. This in itself may not be objec tionable if nourishing feed is then cheaper and easily obtained, while the pasture period was one of tho highest prico for butter-fat or milk. Pasture experiments were conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station at Manhattan from 1833 to 1886 to determine the effect on yield of grain and straw. At that time a theory was commonly held by growers end others that pasturing in some unexplained manner was a benefit to the wheat. The results were as follows: Grain. Straw. Bushels lb per acre, per bushel. Fall pastured .. .. 26.15 122.8 Spring pastured .. 27.78 113.1 Not pastured .. .. 29.60 115.5 In these experiments the cattle were not allowed on the plots when the ground was wet, nor was the wheat eaten down for a long period. The Oklahoma Experiment Staton at Stillwater nV > carried on five years’ work with wheat pasture', and likewise attempted to determine the effect of pasturing early and late cn the yields of grain. There were three sets of plots used m this experiment. The plot- not pastured at all averaged for five years 12.71 bushels. The plot that was classed as l ght pastured, cattle being removed on March 1, averaged for five years 11.63 bushels per acre; and the plot that was classed as heavy pastured averaged for five years 8.38 bushels per acre. These experiments were conducted 1903 to 1907 inclusive.

Both cattle and wheat men in the great wheat belt of Central Kansas siy that all the pasture obtained in the fall is clear gain and that wheat pastured before Christmas will usually make as great a yield at harvest as that not so used.