days to maturity for barley silage

[Ron]

I cant see combining anything seeded this late (another 2" today on land that was already soaked) but if I get barley seeded by june 20 will it make a decent silage crop? Ave first frost sept 8 so approx 78 days from seeding?
Thanks

[poorboy]

I think that you should be fine. First of all you don't really need grain in the head to make silage or greenfeed, it just adds to the tonnage.

Lots of people who are swath grazing have seeded crops in July for swathing in late sept or oct and been happy.

I often find that later seeded crops have more height to them as all the heat and light really makes the growth per day much larger, as compared to a crop struggling to grow in late april or early may.

I find a Drumheller, that my barley silage seeded in early May is usually ready to silage on July 24-27 and the late May seeded barley is usually ready to silage Aug 5-10. I would think that July 20 seeded barley would be ready to silage on Aug 25-30.

The problem may be to find someone to silage it late in August. The grain crops are starting to come off and lots of operators are then too busy to do silage, greenfeed may be an option then.

Chemfallow is not a bad option either, with fertilizer so high. An application of 11-52-0-0 and canola seed will grow you an excellent canola crop next year for little $$$.

Will polish canola mature in time if seeded by June 20 and seeded at a high rate (say 8 lbs polish canola per acre)? I have reseeded areas that gophers have ate off before and I have found that polish canola seeded late in June outyields polish seeded in early June, because it tends to flower after the heat spell in late July.