Cattle Cover BMR Sorghum Sudan: High Digestibility for Hay and Grazing

0:05 All right. Well, this is our cattle cover test plot and this particular strip was planted at 25 lb per acre. We were doing some experiments on this one, but normally 25 lb on a sorghum sedan is going to be your normal seeding rate.

0:19 Sorghum sedan, so we have a cross

0:21 Between a forage sorghum and a sedge grass plant. And then this particular variety, cattle cover, is one of the more improved varieties on the market. So this one has a lot of the different traits rolled into it. So it's a BMR, so brown midrib.

0:36 That's a reduced lignin indicator, so a higher digestibility. We have aphid tolerance. We have male sterility. So, this plant it has seed heads coming out, but if planted in a monoculture, it wouldn't make viable seed, which does two things for you. One, that's a volunteer control mechanism, so if you

0:54 Don't want volunteer seed, the male sterile is a nice piece. But also, it improves the sugar content in the plant. Because normally when a plant's going reproductive, you know, it's sending starches to fill that grain head out. Well, if it can't make viable seed, all those sugars stay in the plant.

1:12 And we have increased sugar, higher energy content there. So a lot of great traits packed into this particular plant. Keith, why don't you talk to us a little bit about how you're using cattle cover with your customers?

1:23 Yeah, so we use a lot of cattle cover. It's probably the number one sorghum.

1:27 Sedan that we sell because of all these traits and the versatility. You can see how tall this stuff is, you know, it's 7 ft tall. Now, it is putting a seed head on, which may concern some people, but as long as you don't have other sorghum in your mix, you know, this isn't going to produce any viable.

1:43 Seed because of that male sterile characteristic. And like Nathan said, it keeps the sugars in the plant. So if you've ever had molasses, this is the type of plant they use, a male sterile plant, because they're squeezing the molasses out of this stock or it's squeezing the sugar out of the stock.

2:17 4 ft tall. Because once it heads out, it will still regrow, but not as well as if you catch it in the boot stage. And so, this is a very popular one for people who want to put up multiple cuttings of hay or do multiple grazings throughout the season.

2:34 We really like the BMR, we really like the male sterile, and especially if you're a little further south, the sugarcane aphid can wreak havoc on sorghums. So, you want to make sure you're getting genetics that have some tolerance to that sugarcane aphid, which this one does.

2:49 Yeah, the other advantage with haying it or grazing it earlier is you do give yourself the time in the season from those multiple cuttings or multiple regrowths, which when you're talking about a high-quality sorghum plant like this, that's where it can really pay.

3:03 Dividends. So, yeah, probably around that 45, maybe 60 days, take that hay cutting, run that first grazing pass, and then let it come back and regrow because this plant will regrow aggressively. It'll tiller out, and so often that second regrowth can be just as high production if not higher because of all those tillers. So, don't let it get this tall. If you're trying to make hay, all these big stocks, you're just not going to have fun with that. So, take it early and allow the regrowth to work for you.