Grazing corn is becoming increasingly more common. So is grazing cover crops. But what happens when you put the two together? How wide should the corn rows be in order to make space for the cover crop? And is this a profitable way of farming?
Byron Long of Long Family Farm at Barrhead County, Alberta has been exploring answers to these questions by experimenting with 45-inch, 60-inch, and 90-inch corn row spacing. After planting the corn, Long used a drill with openers flipped up to avoid the corn rows and seeded a diverse cover crop mix. The mix included legumes, sorghum, millet, sunflowers, forage peas, and various cereals.
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There were a couple of pleasant surprises in the feed value test results, says Long in this episode of Profitable Practices, one of them being the difference that the wider row spacing made in the tonnage, as well as the nutrient content of the feed. While the corn tonnage came down by approximately half a tonne every time that the row widened, the cover crop mix more than made up for it, with three and a half tonnes of forage on the widest spacing and as low as one tonne on the 45 inch rows, he says. Another surprise in the feed test results was the higher micro-nutrient content of the forage in the wider rows.
Long is grazing the calves on-side with the cows throughout the winter using an electric poly-wire fence. With excellent forage value, he does not see a need to supplement the feed outside of some straw and a bale of hay on the day before they move into another strip.
With lower nitrogen inputs and lower yardage costs throughout the winter, Long says that this practice is looking very profitable. As much as he likes his cows, if he’s not making money he won’t be doing it. As for next year, Long plans on pushing the 90 inch rows.
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Related: Wider corn row spacing plus cover crop blends proves profitable for Alberta rancher
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