Forage Winter Wheat Production for Grazing or Hay Production in Eight Montana Counties

View the project final report

Commodities

• Agronomic: wheat
• Animals: bovine

Practices

• Animal Production: feed/forage, feed rations
• Crop Production: continuous cropping, multiple cropping
• Education and Training: extension, on-farm/ranch research
• Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns
• Production Systems: general crop production
• Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures

In a project involving eight counties of Montana, producers and extension agents will plant a promising variety of winter wheat to assess its value for hay or grazing. The variety, tested in small-plot trials and available in limited supply, will be planted in Ravalli, Granite, Gallatin, Judith Basin, Hill, Wheatland, Garfield and Custer counties through a Farmer/Rancher grant from Western SARE. Currently, no forage winter wheat varieties are recommended for use in Montana. Producers typically plant spring oats or barley for feed. But spring rain may hinder oat and barley planting, and equipment demands are heavy in the spring. Winter wheat, meanwhile, will out-produce those crops on both irrigated and non-irrigated fields in most of the state, taking advantage of winter moisture and pollinating in the cooler early summer. The research from this grant will help producers decide if this variety will help them enhance production using biological cycles and resources more effectively.