From page 31 plan forms of supplementation . Organised smallholders will already have planted winter crops as forage for their animals . Lucerne , winter ryegrass and oats are popular and can be planted as late as March . Lucerne is semi-permanent but annual varieties are also available . It is strongly recommended that it be grown amongst grasses . One of the reasons for this is that nitrogen levels build up to unhealthy levels in pure legume pastures . This way the grasses benefit as well . Smuts Finger ( Digitaria eriantha ) combines well with lucerne , because it is nitrogen hungry . It provides better autumn grazing and early winter forage . Another crop that should be considered as a winter feed crop is oats . This crop has quite a few
Lucerne , oats , stooling rye , plantain & sainfoin ... all are options for winter fodder
advantages : it is suitable for almost all regions of South Africa , it also has a depressing effect on soil-borne diseases such as take-all and it a significant contributor to sustainable agriculture as it canbeusedasanatural herbicide , fertilizer , mulch and biomass , groundcover and to control erosion . Witteberg oats and Overberg oats are used for fodder crops . Other varieties are more suited to milling . The crop is widely adapted to most soil conditions . The planting time for oats is January to April in warmer areas . It is recognised that your pasture will be more successful if it is multi-specie . Stooling rye is a valuable fodder ( for pasture , hay or silage ) and has the added advantage of being a cover crop during winter . During late autumn , livestock can graze stooling rye forage once it has reached a height of 15 ~ 20 cm but the animals should be removed when the grass height is reduced to 5 ~ 7 cm , to avoid the danger of strangles and other problems . But there are other forage crops that you might not have considered . Plantain provides an improved supply of some trace elements to animals ( Cu , Zn , Se ), which has a positive impact on animal performance . It is also extremely palatable to stock . The autumn planting is March to April . Sainfoin is a perennial legume that has much to
LIVESTOCK offer Highveld smallholders . It is a non-bloating , highly digestible and nutritious pasture . Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Sainfoin is its excellent frost tolerance . Managed correctly , it can provide green pasture in the middle of winter . Triticale has also been planted successfully in warmer regions of Gauteng . It can be used for grazing , hay , silage as well as a grain feed . Planting months are April – May . Remember that your fields form the foundation of your enterprise , providing the bulk of the forage . Controlled selective grazing ( CSG ) has for many years been recommended as the most suitable veld management system for the sweet grass veld areas in South Africa . Seasonal resting of veld leads to a dramatic increase in production of
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