The Agronomists, Ep 228: Revving up triticale stands with Joanna Follings and Christine O'Reilly

Ready to rock your canola season. Set the stage for your Invigor hybrid. Canola's performance with herbicide hits like Centurion. Adv Certitude and The new Liberty amp. Plus fungicides like Cotegra, all from BASF. See the lineup at agsolutions.ca canolafest. Thank you to our show sponsors, the Canola School. Ruminating with RealAg and MMP. With deep roots in agriculture, MMP's Farm Management Consulting team helps farm businesses make confident decisions for long term success. From strategic planning to operational growth, MMP advisors guide farms through challenges and opportunities. Connect with MMP today to build a stronger future. Learn more@mmp cat. Hi everyone, welcome to the Agronomist. I am your host Lindsay Smith and yes Pete, I am on time because we're going to talk about forages. So it's my favourite topic and so I'm going to be absolutely on time so we get the full hour to talk about this excellent topic. Okay, thank you everyone for joining us in the chat already. Let us know where you're joining from. What the weather is like. I saw the sun for the first time in a while for the past few days and it was lovely. Welcome back old friend. I hope you stick around. If we are it is February 2nd. It is groundhog Day. If anybody can let me know. If we've got eight weeks or 10 weeks left of winter that would be great because that's how I measure it and exciting for tonight's episode. This is a knowledge sharing event under the COVID Crop stream. At the end of the programme we will share a QR code. So if you do need a KSE if for a project here in Ontario, you can take a snapshot of that and we'll get you connected with your kse. And of course if you collect the CEU credits as always, head on over to realagriculture.com agronomous after today and you can let us know you took in the show and we'll get those credits too. You as well. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter and every Wednesday we'll send you a couple storeys the week's Agronomist and maybe a look at what's coming up. Okay, so without further ado, I'm super excited. Let's bring in tonight's guest. We're talking about forages revving up forages, including annual and fall seeded cereals in our rotation. So to have that conversation I've got Joanna Follings and Christina Riley, both with Omafa. Apparently that's how you say it. I'll never get over it, guys. For the rest of my career, I will say it wrong. Anyway, Joanna, we'll start with you. Cereal specialist. What is keeping you busy these days? Lots of meetings. Right now we're in the thick of meeting seasons, which is pretty exciting. But it's great to hear all the things growers are curious about. Lots of questions about what's going to happen with winter wheat and actually lots of questions about some other things we're going to talk about tonight, especially with winter treated kale. It's a big one. Okay. Yeah. There was so much excitement and I can't wait. Okay, Christine, also meeting season for you. I would assume lots going on this week too. So thanks for making time. But what is keeping you busy? Similar to Joanna, although the main topic I've been touching on this winter has been rotational grazing, although there has been a lot of requests for using triticale as forage. So those have kind of been my two main topics this winter. I like it. Okay. And that is we are not going to spend the whole evening talking about this cross of wheat and rye, but it's going to probably take up a lot of the conversation, if only because there is so much interest in it these days. And Joanna, maybe I'll start with you. You have presented on this topic a couple times and you're pulling together, you know, some of the reasons why we're having so many of these conversations. But maybe give us that background, catch us up. Why is this, you know, this triticale crop suddenly so exciting for Ontario? Yeah, it's kind of an interesting fad that has exploded here in the last little while. You know, we went from, you know, maybe a couple thousand acres now to just in the last year, anywhere from 20 to 25,000 acres are some of the estimates. And it's really growers looking for an alternative forage crop for their system. There's been a lot of work that's been done out of New York State with Tom Kilser, so I'm kind of, you know, unofficially dubbing him the tritical king. He's done lots of research as a high quality dairy forage and that's really taken off. And I think with triticale in particular, there's lots of ways to utilise it in management so it can be harvested both as baleage or as haylage, you know, if cut before heading, but then you can also cut it at the soft dough stage and then it can be Kind of used as like a whole, you know, cereal silage, which kind of feeds more like corn silage compared to haylage. So it's, it's just got a lot of diversity and there's been definitely a lot of interest in research from just providing an alternative high protein to the rations. Now, Christine, so it sounds to me like Joanna is wheezing in on your territory on the forest side. And so did you have to arm wrestle about this or like, how did you decide who gets to take it? Not at all. I look at this very much the same way I look at corn silage, which is. Joanna does cereal agronomy day in and day out. I dabble in it occasionally, but. But I also have other crops in my file. So, yeah, when it comes, when it comes to the agronomy, I'm usually double checking with her to be like, does this line up with what, you know, on the grain side or what she's seen? Because she's, she's looking at a more narrow crop profile in terms of research. But when it comes to maybe the storage side and how it feeds out, in a lot of cases, I'm more likely to be having those conversations with growers, with nutritionists. So we're working together a lot on winter cereals as forage because it is an overlap between the crops that we cover. Yep. I will say, and I know, you know, both of you being in Ontario, we are. This is more of an Ontario focus for tonight. But it is a crop that gets used for swath grazing quite a bit in the west as well. It's a very versatile forage that gets used in rations in the west as well. So it is, I'll be honest, I'm kind of happy to see it sort of getting its due. Joanna, maybe, though, I'll touch on that for a moment. What is it about this crop that is attracting growers to adding it into their rotation and where does it fit in that rotation? Yeah, that's a really great question. So I think one of the things with triticale is that it responds very, very well to management. So if seated in an ideal window frame and managed pretty well, it tiller aggressively. But you can, you know, put the management to it, but it also has really good standability. Obviously, every cereal has its breaking point when it comes to sustainability, but it's a crop that we can push and responds really well. And growers can consistently get very. I mean, for. Again, I'm speaking in Ontario context and in Ontario use, but we can get pretty good yields Anywhere between two to four tonnes of dry matter per acre. You know, a lot of the averages kind of sit around that two tonne mark. It is a little bit later than rye. So in terms of fitting it into the system, you know, there's growers that are planting it after, you know, winter wheat, they're planting it after winter canola, they're trying to get it and fit it in even with corn. And it also then provides an opportunity for double crop system. So you can still put the, you can put your tritical in and do a short season silage corn. Obviously there's going to be slightly lower yields on that corn silage if we're having to shorten up the season. But all in all, it's a crop that responds super well to management. It can provide additional protein in the ration. And so I think that's very attractive for a lot of producers who maybe don't have as much alfalfa and things like that in their system anymore. Christine. So I guess to flip that the other way is. So to that point, do we have less alfalfa in rotation overall? And, and why. We do know that in some parts of the province there are growers that have really shifted away from alfalfa and into triticale. And I think it really comes down to that one harvest, right? You've got one harvest for tritical, you've got one harvest for corn, so you're not spending all summer putting up haylage. The flip side of that though is now all your risk is in those two harvest windows. So like, yeah, you save on some labour but you're, you're, you're changing your risk profile in terms of are you going to have the weather you need at harvest? And everyone's risk tolerance is a little bit different and everyone's forage inventory needs are a little bit different. So I can't say, you know, one system is better than the other, but it changes your weather risk at planting and harvest if you move only into annual crops versus having a mix of annuals and perennials. Right. Okay. A few things to unpack on that one. But I did want to point out, Pete asks about, do they grow forages for silage in Alberta? Absolutely. Triticale would be one of them. Barley though is a big one. There's a lot of barley silage in the west and of course corn silage as well. But barley would often get used as well. But it is, it's pretty versatile. It would show up in Alberta as well. Pete and Kevin Bishop, who's out in B.C. so we skip right over the prairies and go all the way to the west. That he's got winter wheat, annual rye, triticale blend planted after corn silage, which loves the manure. 8 to 10 tonne dry matter possible. Also remember Joanna and Christine, keep it in perspective. Kevin is in the Fraser Valley. It rains a gajillion inches of rain every year. Um, that ryegrass would love those conditions. Yeah, I can see why he's getting those yields. Yeah, yeah. And he's got all sorts of dairy manure to schlop on there too. So it's a 10 is wild. It is. So, yeah. So every once in a while when we all need like a reality cheque on what we're talking about, we ask Gavin, how are things where he is? And then we all started to shake our heads. So there you go. Canada is a wonderful place and very different. Okay, so I, I want to get back though too. And there's a couple questions about establishment, etc. And Christine, I'll start with you on this one in. So taking that question back a bit again on the alfalfa side versus something like, you know, a fall seeded forage or cereal used for forage, et cetera. Like how much of this shift towards using our shoulder seasons for either cover crops or dual use. Like, it seems to me like there's a lot more of this, of this discussion of fitting perhaps annual forages in or fitting in a cover crop that we use for forage. Like how much sort of, I don't know, it's almost like flexibility. Are producers trying to add into some of their rotations? I think it depends a bit on which sector you're talking about. So when I have conversations with beef and sheep producers, absolutely, they are trying to get more out of those shoulder seasons. They're trying to even out their forage supply throughout the year so that instead of having, you know, all kinds of forage in the spring, during that spring flush, when our cool season crops grow incredibly fast and then nothing in the summer, they're just trying to get that mix of annuals and perennials to even out the supply throughout the year. When you're talking to dairy producers, it seems to be less about when that crop is available because except for our organic and grass fed producers, most conventional farms are housed so they're feeding stored forage year round. So that supply, once it's in, once it's put up, like you've got your supply. So for them it's more about making milk, making Components. And honestly, I don't argue with dairy nutritionists. I'm not a dairy nutritionist, I don't argue with those people. And a wise dairy nutritionist doesn't argue with the cows. And cows love triticale. It's palatable. They milk really well off it, it's digestible. And yeah, if you give it enough nitrogen, it puts on crude protein. So because cows love it, that I think is, is really the big driver that's made it popular in the dairy sector. And then other sectors are looking at it, yes, for those same feed quality reasons, but also from just when it's available, it helps them in other ways. So, and, and we've got a few questions on the, on the agronomy side and we have some really good slides to delve into. And Joanna, one of the key things that is different with all of these. So let's, let's say if we're talking, you know, we've got winter wheat, we've got, you know, winter barley, we've got triticale, we've got rye, we've got, I mean, all of them are going to have an ideal time that they should necessarily go in, but triticale does need to go in earlier is my understanding. So I think Producer J, if you'll go to slide one of Joanna's, I think we've got a map. But walk me through some of the differences with triticale versus what maybe growers are more familiar with. So triticale is slightly different than winter wheat in Ontario. So this is the optimum planting date map for Ontario winter wheat and tritical and winter barley, both winter barley. Ideally, we would like to see growers plant seven to 10 days prior to their winter wheat planting date. Again, that's for winter survival and tillering. So we kind of already know with that crop, at least in Ontario, we have to plant a bit earlier. With rye, it can be seeded quite a bit later than some of the other winter cereals. Obviously we want to get it established in good time as well in terms of being able to get the most out of our biomass and the most out of our winter survival. Botrytical is even a little bit different yet in that we actually like to see it seeded, you know, about 10 to 14 days prior to our optimum winter wheat planting date. And really the reason for that is that it just allows us to get a much thicker stand because we're giving that tritical time to actually tiller in the fall and that ultimately is going to increase our, our spring forage yield potential. It also, the earlier we plant, it also gives us good weed control so we can really control those winter and biannual weeds. And it just also ever so slightly, again, if this is critical, especially those that are looking at a double crop system, if we plant earlier, we find that we can ever so slightly harvest for the tritical earlier as well. Later plantings can still work, but later plantings does make us more susceptible. Like if we delay our winter wheat susceptible to spring heaving and injury, we will. And we do tend to see lower yield potentials with later planting dates. So obviously this is something we want to strive for, but it's not always possible. And so it's not to discourage growers and say if you can't do this, don't plant it. Just keep in mind that if you want to start at your highest yield potential with any cereal crop is date. And so the optimum planting date for triticale is really that 10 to 14 days earlier than our winter wheat. Now, one of the, and Pete and I talked about this on the radio show today is one of the sort of myths out there maybe that this won't, this crop won't lodge. I would have also said sucks to that every crop will lodge given either the right conditions, thin enough stems, high enough manure, whatever, whatever you want to say, yes, it will. But that does bring up the question, and Pete has asked sort of about that question of nitrogen, that question of management from a fertility perspective. Joanna, maybe I'll start with you on this one. From fertility perspective, where does it sort of stack up versus say winter wheat? So winter tritical. The research has been slightly different with winter triticale based again what we're seeing in New York. So with winter triticale we see small amounts of fall nitrogen. You know, we are seeing, depending on the planting date, if planting before September 20, approximately 30 to 60 pounds of nitrogen has shown to show benefit to that fall applied nitrogen. We don't typically put that amount of nitrogen here in Ontario anyways on our other cereals, you know, winter wheat, we put ever so slightly, for example, with our map. So we are seeing that with earlier plantings with triticale there is a bit of fall fertility there that it does seem to benefit from. And to be honest, a lot of livestock producers are using it as an opportunity to put some manure down prior to planting. So they typically do that at a relatively low rate. And we generally recommend no more than a half to two thirds of your total nitrogen when on cereals to come from manure but again, a small amounts of fall nitrogen, 30 to 60 pounds, especially if you're in that earlier planting date. Now, in some of the work that Peter Johnson did previously when it came to spring fertility, was that when we're just looking at yields at that time, you know, just strictly Yield, you know, 60 pounds of nitrogen, you know, kind of optimise our yield. But with tritical, you know, nine times out of a 10, we're also looking for protein, crude protein. And so generally speaking, when we're looking for high amounts of protein, especially if this is going in a dairy ration, then we want to be looking at higher rates and in that case we want to be looking at 120 pounds of nitrogen to start in order to optimise that crude protein. Along with that yield. There are producers and some of the work that Tom has done that are pushing that even more. But again, if you're a producer that still has other aspects of the system, like if you have alfalfa in the ration still, I don't know that we necessarily need to go to those extremely high rates of nitrogen of 150 to 250 pounds an acre, we could still probably stick to that 100, 120 pounds of nitrogen. Okay. Okay, Jay, let's go to the next slide. Actually, sorry, while you're up there, I was almost fast enough, sorry, producer Jay, note the one before. There we go. Okay, so this is. Okay, so walk us through. Okay, yeah, walk us through what we're looking at here. Okay, so this is just to. Sorry, I kind of, I jumped around there a bit. So this is some winter tritical. This was actually just planted this past fall. This was a variety called Bronco. So this was a variety that was selected because of its resistance to snow mould, which I hope we can touch on here shortly as well. But this variety was planted on September 5th. So this was actually 11 days prior to this grower's optimum winter wheat planting date. So I just wanted to kind of highlight here what we're looking at in terms of high yield potential stands when we're going out in the fall. This is what growers are looking for and this is what growers are considered are seeing. So you can see there's, there's quite a bit of biomass there. It doesn't necessarily always look super pretty going into the winter, but this is what these high yielding growers, you know, when we're talking about two plus tonnes per acre, this is what they're looking for in the fall. Okay, Christine, when you See, something like this, Joanna's point about it maybe not looking the best going into the fall, as when you work with producers who are trying to fit in, shoulder season or fall seeded for, you know, annual forage and try and smooth out those bumps. What is it like working through sort of fall conditions and trying to get, you know, some of these crops in in the fall and what they look like? I'm thinking back to this past fall where I don't know about you guys, but it snowed like November 5th or something dumb. And so it looked pretty rough. And I'm not super hopeful about what might be there in the spring, but maybe. So how, how do you sort of manage that as we, as you deal with more producers who are, are trying more fall seeded cereals or forage, you know, for an annual harvest, sort of managing what it should look like in the fall, going into winter. Yeah, I mean, the nice thing about the winter cereals is we can tell them, you know, sit tight, scout it early when that snow melts and things start greening up, get out and scout. Because yeah, it can look a little ugly in the fall, but oftentimes it pulls through just fine. I guess the one comment that I did want to make though, when Joanna was talking about the fertility bit is that fall nitrogen, which is unusual to apply in Ontario for cereal grain. We know with perennial grass, if you apply £50 an acre of nitrogen in the fall, you can get those grasses to tiller more. You apply that nitrogen in the spring, they're going to put that into leaf growth. They're going to. It's going to be, I don't want to say more yield, but it's that leaf growth rather than tillering. So grasses seem to respond fairly consistently that way to nitrogen timing. So we see that in perennials and we see it in cereals as well. But yeah, schedule. Yes. I don't know how early though, because I feel like we're gonna have snow till May anyway. I'm just. The sun really helped, guys. Okay. But if you had talked to me last week, I was certain we would have snow till May. I have a little hope this week that we will not have snow until May. If somebody could guarantee that, that would be great because it's okay. Okay, Right. Thank you. To a specific rodent who. Yes, hello. Science. Yeah, totally science, guys. We love science based research here. Okay. Actually looking at the time, Producer J, can you cue up our second read of the night? We'll go to that and then we'll come back. We've got some great questions popping up in the chat and lots more to cover here on the Agronomist. So producer J, if you would. We'll go to our second read of the night. Our sponsors for the Agronomists are mmp, the Canola School and Ruminating with Real Egg. Ruminating with Real Egg is a podcast series that focuses on all things bovine. We're here to chew the cud on everything from the latest in cattle genetics to how to keep your herd happy with rotational grazing to winter feeding techniques and everything in between. Find it on realagriculture.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. Cheque out the Ruminating with RealAg podcast. It is fantastic. Okay. You have to like cows and grazing. Sometimes sheep make an appearance. Okay. So there, there are of course other crops out there, but we do have a lot of questions about managing this particular one. So Pete asked Joanna, I wonder if, planted early with some fall n that the spring n rates that Shane and I found are too low. What say you? Yeah, so I do agree. And that's why I sort of had that caveat in there that that's kind of looking at some, some yield. So, you know, beyond that, we do kind of see this. When you look at the curve, the nitrogen curve, response or response curve, sorry, you do see it flatten out after that. But again, if, if this is a system that you really want to push, you want to maximise, you know, the, the feed value out of every acre and you want to optimise protein in particular or quality, which is a huge part of forages, especially with triticale, then absolutely. I think Peter's rates at that time of 60 pounds are too low. And that's why I say, you know, I would be looking at at least 100 to 120 pounds of nitrogen. And again, we have growers with even, you know, more intensive management strategies that are pushing 150 pounds of nitrogen. And in those systems, though, I would say they are tending or they don't tend to have alfalfa either. So if there's no alfalfa in the system, you are really relying on that protein from that tritical, then yeah, you're going to have to go to 150 pounds of nitrogen. If you do have alfalfa in the system to complement that tritical, well, then I don't think we need to necessarily push that tritical as hard. Christine, now's your time to shine, to talk about exactly that. Whether or not you've got legumes in that rotation or in that stand, sorry, in a perennial stand, whether or not we need to be adding N. So take it away. Yeah. And maybe this goes without saying, but since this segment is called the Agronomists and not the nutritionist, I'm going to say it. If you can grow protein, it's a lot cheaper than buying it to feed it. So this is why having not all crops high protein, but some crops high protein that a nutritionist can use to balance that ration is really important. So, yeah, having legumes in the system makes that protein a lot cheaper because they don't take as much or any nitrogen fertiliser. They'll still use nitrogen from manure. Right. So it's. It's a very economical way to get that protein grown on farms you don't have to buy it in. But the other component of this is that crude protein is normally not the first thing. Most anytime I get a chance to talk to a nutritionist, I ask them, what's the first thing you look at on a forage analysis? And it's almost never crude protein. Most of the time, after moisture content, they're looking at digestible fibre. And grasses have a higher fibre content than legumes in general at a similar stage of development, but they also have a higher digestible fibre content. And so this is, I think, really why cows milk so well off triticale. And why this has become so popular is because triticale is a grass, so it's got really high digestible fibre. And because it stands with these very high rates of nitrogen, we can get it to actually have a higher protein content than a lot of other cereal species would, because, you know, you hit fall rye with this kind of nitrogen and it falls flat. So we wouldn't be able to harvest it. So that, I think, is. Is why the tritical is popular. But then you've also got to look at, okay, how much is that nitrogen costing me? And this plays into those. Those decisions again, right? It's unique to every farm, but it's that balancing act of, okay, is it worth the nitrogen cost or should I be growing a legume? Whether that's alfalfa, whether that's red clover, whether it's field peas, something that would be lowering that cost to get that protein. But again, it's unique to each farm and it's a systems kind of decision that should be made with both the agronomist and the nutritionist at the table. So, and this also brings up, of course, we are talking about using these as, like, these are annual crops. I mean, yes, they might be fall seeded or whatever, but I mean, we're taking them either to the soft dose stage, making like a silage or we're taking them, you know, at flag and making like a haylage or whatever. But it's. I mean, we're talking annual. I do want to switch gears just slightly because, Christine, you and I had this conversation a couple weeks ago. Hard to believe it was that long ago. Already about. And I just want to touch on this point just quickly for spring management, like when we do break dormancy, when that day comes, that we actually have some green up and in a mixed forage perennial stand. So we've got legumes, we've got grasses. I think at times we still are. Like if, and especially after last year's drought, if I'm going to hit it with something in the spring to help it along, to help, you know, it was maybe stress lush or whatever. How much legume do I need in the mix to know that I don't have to add N or is a little N? Okay. Yeah. So normally we would say if that stand is half or more legume, you don't need to apply any nitrogen. If it's between a third and a half, a low rate, 50 pounds, 50 to 75 pounds of actual nitrogen would be fine. If it's less than a third legumes, then. Oh, goodness, Lindsay, you tested me. 45 pounds of nitrogen per US tonne of expected dry matter yield. So get out your pencils. Yeah, I'm taking notes. I'll do the math. Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, no, one, one thing that I have been hearing because it's been so dry in eastern Canada this past year is, you know, talking about overseeding some of those legumes to try to get ahead of that. So, yeah, it can work. Your main things for frost seeding would be make sure that you know your soil, bare soil, at least the size of a loonie, those little patches. Otherwise the seeds are gonna have a hard time getting to the soil. Proceed to soil contact. Red clover is great. Birdsfoot tree foil is great. Not alfalfa. It's most frost sensitive between second trifoliate and when the crown finishes developing. So the odds of that crop getting zapped by a late frost are pretty high, especially considering the cost of the seed. So we don't recommend frost seeding alfalfa, some growers have had success frost seeding grasses. We don't recommend it just because with the larger seed size, it's harder to get that good seed to soil contact when broadcasting. I won't say it can't be done because some growers have had good luck with it, but you'd be better drilling it in with a sod seeder or no till drill than broadcasting grasses just because of the seed size. Nothing blows away quite like grass seed, so there's that too. You need to actually get it where you need it to be. Okay, Pete has a question maybe Joanna, I'll go to you on this one. What about hybrid fall rye and high end rates? Would that work without lodging? Do either of you have any experience with hybrid fault rye? I don't have a tonne of experience beyond what I like watch on real agriculture on other people that are doing it, but I've never used it. So Joanna, do you have an experience of, of how different management is with hybrid? So hybrid fall rye, it, they definitely has better stand event stand ability than conventional varieties. They tend to be a bit shorter, stems tend to be a bit thicker. So it can definitely be pushed more than conventional rye depending on the producer. And the neos. Rye in Ontario is grown for contract to go to the distilling market. And so growers in that space are using anywhere from 90 to 120 pounds of nitrogen in that situation. So and again, conventional or hybrid varieties tend to be have better sustainability than conventional varieties, but growers can also manage that with a pgr. But again, if you're looking at this from a forage standpoint, it really comes down to cost and whether or not you, you know, you want to be putting all of that, you know, using a PGR and pushing nitrogen rates that high for a forage. We did look at this a little bit with Christophe Wan and tried it on a number of farms. We did try it with a sheep producer, beef producer and a hog producer actually, and you know, they all felt it had a fit. It does have higher seed costs though as well. So again, it's one of those situations where you kind of have to pencil everything out on your own operation depending on what other options you have for forages or feed on farm. But it is a good option. It tends to yield anywhere from 1.2 to 2 times more than conventional rye. And you can push it more on the management side compared to open pollinated or conventional rye for sure. Okay, now Christine, question. Do you know anyone who's been putting triticale, either winter or spring varieties in any grazing mixes and how it does in there? And Joanna, same question to you, if you know of anybody I Certainly know of some that have used it to like, thicken up a stand and those sorts of things. But what has been your experience, Christine, with anyone who's grazing? Kaylee yeah. There's sort of two ways you could go about it. Some people, I think this one's still more common. It might end up in like an oat pea spring triticale mix that gets seeded late summer or early fall and grazed off in the fall with the option of, you know, taking some of that as baleage if they don't quite cover all those acres. So that I think is still more common. What's fun about the winter cereals, though, is it does give you two grazing windows if you were decided, if you decided that was how you wanted to harvest it. So you could graze it lightly, moderately in the fall, leaving a fair bit of residue behind, and then go back in the spring after it's had time to green up and grow again and take another pass off it. Then there are some people, I think, that have tried grazing it in the fall and then harvesting it as haylage in the spring. Again, you don't want to graze it too tight in the fall because that is going to impact your yield come spring. But it is a crop that you could take two harvests off it that way if you, if you manage it carefully to not hit it too hard in the fall. Really any of these options all come down to what are you trying to achieve, right. Is it that you need something green to turn your animals out onto early, or is it that you need stored feed or is it. Right. So it really comes down to the list of, like, what are we actually trying to accomplish here? Now, that's from, of course, the livestock perspective. There's also, of course, other things we might be trying to accomplish, whether that's, you know, better weed suppression in the fall, maybe some soil health benefits, something from the COVID crop side that we could be looking at as well. Joanna, in, in your experience in last, as this has sort of gained popularity, you did mention, you know, it does, it does have some really aggressive fall growth. We know that fall rye can be really great at edging out some weeds. Are we seeing the same thing with. Triticale edging up some weeds? Oh, yes, absolutely. So if we've got a really good thick stand there, it will crush biannual and perennial weeds. It's a really great opportunity to help clean that up. And so, yeah, much like rye, it's very, very good in that. And I just wanted to add on the Comment about beefing up. You know, alfalfa stands in that latru Kale. The other thing to keep in mind is, you know, while that does work is the challenge. And sorry, Christine, if you did say this, but it's just the differences in maturity and the quality timing of cutting that forage. So that triticale, when that is likely to be ready, that tends to be a bit early on the early side from an alfalfa standpoint. So timing with those species or different species like that is very critical. And you have to go into that recognising that while you might get the ideal cut or the ideal quality on one pieces of, or one component of that mix, you might not necessarily get everything out of the other part of that mix. And that's the nature of how these crops grow. And we see this on the perennial side too. Grasses are ready before alfalfa every year. And yet every year I talk to agronomists and like, I think because I'm the forage specialist, they feel like they have to give me some kind of update of what's happening in hayfields. And I go, all grasses are ahead of alfalfa this year. I'd be shocked if they weren't. Guys, they grow at cooling temperatures. The, yeah, you're growing degree day accumulation is at a cooler temperature. So yeah, it's going to be really tough. Like Joanna said to they're not going to line up when tritical is ready versus when alfalfa is ready. It's not going to line up. So, yeah, you could thicken a stand, but I think there are better grasses to do that with than triticale. Just in terms of hitting something that, you know, has enough fibre in it that's not just going to run right through a ruminant. You need some physically effective fibre in there. Okay, so what are, what are some of those better options? Let's say. If you are not scared of terminating it, I would say your annual rye grasses. So either perennial rye or Italian ryegrass, both of those overseed nicely. They can handle the competition of getting established with a, with an established alfalfa stand in there. And they're really palatable. So that's a great one. Some people don't like rye grasses because they have caused cover croppers a lot of headache trying to terminate them. I have thoughts on that, but maybe we'll save that for another time. So, yeah, you could go in with something else. Lindsay, you're gonna shake your head at me, but Timothy has a fairly vigorous feeding potential. I Knew it was coming. As a seedling though, like it's, it catches pretty easily. So if you're trying to salvage this and it's not a bad one, the reason Lindsay hates it is because it front loads its yield, right. So you get a lot of yield in first cut and then it doesn't do much until next year for first cut. So it's very lazy. The reason why I say it could be a good one to thicken up a stand is if that alfalfa is so thin you've got overseed of grass into it to like push it through, is it really worth keeping that stand? Like take your first cut to keep your feed inventories up. But really you should be planning a termination rotate that field out. So that's why Timothy could be a good one. Your tall fescue could be good, your orchard grass could be good. Again, your choice kind of comes down to what you like to manage and how aggressive your cutting schedule is. So there's no perfect answer. Some people will also thicken up an alfalfa stand with red clover because they want the protein. Right. So I wish it was a straightforward answer. But as always with forages, it depends. It depends. And that's why we love forages and that's why we have you on even if you do bring up Timothy. Okay, okay. We do have. So there's a few things and yes, Joanna, we absolutely have to talk about are some of the drawbacks to not just obviously triticale, but just trying to fit some of these fall seeded or even and summer seeded cereals in rotation. It definitely changes a few of our risk factors for some things. So we are going to go to our one clip of the night just to draw in some of those benefits. We talked about about putting forage in rotation about some of the soil health benefits. We'll go to that and then we'll talk about some of the risks of course involved in growing some of these crops. So produce. Jay, if you would. Well, the soil health benefits are numerous but right now the one that people are really focusing on is soil organic carbon. And in some words that could be organic matter. But we have to build up, we want to build up the organic carbon part of it. And if we take a look at alfalfa, you know, there's research from different places around the world, but the ones that I keep looking at are from Guelph and it's long term, 30 plus years and they've shown that if you put even two years of alfalfa into the rotation you will increase the soil organic carbon. And they took different ways of measuring it. One was to just measure the top six inches and there was an increase there. But they also measured soil organic carbon in terms of mass of soil per kilogramme of soil. And in both cases, you put alfalfa into the rotation, you increase the soil organic carbon. So zoidic carbon is one part of soil health. Another part is weeds. And all across North America, indeed all across the world, resistant weeds are becoming monumental. The one right now we've got in Ontario that's just very evil is waterhemp. Now, the thing with waterhemp is it's an annual and it'll germinate in the springtime. You put that field in the alfalfa for a couple years, those plants are going, those seeds are going to germinate and they're gone. And there are other weeds, you know, like Canada fleabane, lots of weeds. If they germinate while they're in forages, they die and then they carry on. The next one for soil health is diseases. And we've got a myriad of diseases in soybeans. Soybeans is nematode, even in wheat, all the root rods, corn, all the root rods. Every crop has those. So by putting forages, alfalfa especially, into that rotation, then we get into breaking that disease cycle. Insects is another one. Corn rootworm in parts of Ontario and certainly in parts of the US Big time is a problem. But if you take corn out for one year and put alfalfa in, that gets rid of the corn rootworm. So there are so many different ways that forages, especially alfalfa, benefit soil health. The Agronomist is brought to you by ruminating with Freelag, MMP and the Canola School. From preceding cedar setup and cheques to pest ID and advice on nutrient management decisions to tips on determining swath timing, RealAg's canola school covers every facet of the canola growing season. The Canola School is made possible through sponsorship by BASF Canada and Invigor Hybrid Canola. Learn more at canolaschool.com. I just love the clip of the. We don't always get to the thumbs up. Okay. Okay. So there are, there are a few challenges and we've named a few of them. You know, whether or not a cover crop or a fall seeded crop actually dies by spring or do we have to terminate it? And there's lots to unpack on that end. There's, of course, things that can. I think we've stopped calling it winter Kill, there's spring kill. Right. So there's heaving and there's different things that can, that can definitely ding these crops over or into the spring, I guess, as they break dormancy. One of the key things though, Joanna, I do want to touch on is barley yellow dwarf virus, because as we add more of these cover crops or false seeded crops into the mix, this becomes a bigger and bigger issue. So walk us through it. What is it, how does it happen and then how do we manage for it? Yeah, so barley yellow dwarf virus, it's kind of something we always heard about across the pond in the UK and kind of thought, oh, that's just a problem over there. But unfortunately here, at least in Ontario, it's become a problem. Pretty big issue the last couple of years. So the virus is transmitted by aphids. So cereal aphids will feed on the cereal crop plant. They particularly love oats, they'll feed on that. And when they're, you know, sucking the SAP from those plants, they'll actually transmit the virus and they'll keep doing that throughout the field. And so a fall infection in cereals with Broley alder virus is much more detrimental on yield than a spring infection. And so what we'll see, or what we tend to see in the spring. Yeah, here we've got some photos. So on the right there we will see those leaf tips, they'll be yellow and purple. You'll kind of see those throughout the field. I would say almost every winter cereal field and actually almost every cereal field period the last couple of years, and last year in particular had barley olidor fires. Not every field had a fall infection, but we definitely saw spring infections across the board. And so this is an example of some fields from last year. So this field in particular is actually winter barley and got an infection in the fall. And if you get a fall infection, you can also get extreme stunting of the crop. And some growers have to actually take out their stands because of how much it impacts fields. So we still yield losses from this anywhere from 30 to 70% depending on the level of infection. And so unfortunately, with winter cereals in particular, early planting results in more time for those aphids to feed on the plant and spread that virus. So in terms of managing this, unfortunately, one of the ways to manage it is to push back our planting date. So if we've got a really, you know, big open fall, beautiful weather, the aphids or fries thriving, there's no frost. Unfortunately, delaying planting is one of the ways we can help Manage that and have them not feeding as long. The other way is to use an insecticide seed treatment. So seed treatments are not going to completely eliminate the virus, but it will help take care of the aphids and keep them from continuing to spread through the field and spreading that infection. And then really, unfortunately, is one of the amazing things that growers are doing and that's cover cropping. And we have, you know, one of the easiest cover crops to grow in Ontario and manage. It's a great alternative forage. I think I saw Mark Davis mention in here, you know, what is the best thing for forage on a shoulder season that's dead before spring? Oats. So it is unfortunately one of the most common cover crops in Ontario, but it has created a really, really good harbouring space for aphids to feed. They love oats, so they will stay in that cover crop and then move to these newly seeded cereals in the fall. And so again, the best defence is managing our planting date, if we are planting early, is to definitely plan on a seed treatment. I think the seed treatment can really help reduce the level of affection that occurs. And if you have fields that, you know are intended to those false heroes, maybe don't plant the oak right around them to help manage those aphids. And actually, yeah, so Peter there, he actually, I. Sorry, I'm just sort of half watching the comments, but that's okay. So these fields are. This one field in particular is some of the fields that Peter actually works with. I didn't want to say that he was a bad agronomist. So now we all know. But now we all know. Yeah, he did say they actually did quite well, which is great. And I know the grower did have to take some of the stands out, but I guess in terms of deciding to keep the stand, I would say it's very similar to when we're walking fields just for winter survival in the spring, you know, you want to go throughout the entire field, take an assessment of the stands. You know, if you're seeing stunting on less than 10% of the field, for example, I would keep that stand. If you've got stunted plants, you know, 50% of the field, then that's when we might start to consider alternative options there. If you see that purpling and yellow leaf tips in the spring and you don't see the scenting, you know, that's likely a spring infection. And I would not take that out. You might see a slight impact. We do. You know, these plants are quite resilient but it's just if you're planting early, you've got lots of COVID crop oats, or just cereals in general, in the vicinity of where you're seeding. Definitely plan on a seed treatment. Okay. Now, Christine, we deal with all sorts of fun insects and diseases, etc. In forages because they are perennial, which means they're there year after year. And so sometimes we can end up with some of these, you know, some of these populations that really build, etc. One of the questions that always comes up about our favourite crop, the oat, the COVID crop, is rust infections that happen in the outcrop. And then the next question often is, can you still feed it or can you still graze it? And it comes up probably every year. So putting aside the avoiding rust, if you've got a rust infection of oat, can you still feed it? Probably, is the answer. The way a colleague put it once. Rust is a plant disease. So, like, rust is not a mycotoxin. Rust will not make livestock ill. If you've got enough spores, they'll start to cough. Usually by the time they're coughing, they're also refusing to eat it. So that's why it's a. Maybe you can feed it, but if the infection's bad enough, they're gonna go, no, that's gross. I don't want to eat it. That's gross. Yeah. If, if you're planning to grow oats for a forage, especially if you're harvesting it, plan to put a fungicide on that. Just. We know how susceptible oats are to rust and cost wise, I ran some, some numbers back late summer, and at this point, I mean, spring triticale is not totally resistant to rust, but is way less susceptible than oats. Seed cost is a lot more. It still seems to be a little more cost effective to grow oats and spray fungicide than to buy spring triticale. But if you can't or don't want to spray a fungicide, I'd consider the spring triticale because that lowers your rust risk without having to factor a fungicide application into the mix. I do want to point out that there are oat varieties with rust resistance. They're just not ready. Those are a great option. They are. We just don't tend to ask or use them. And it's, it's a bit of a, like, pet peeve of mine is that we seem to have accepted as livestock producers that we have no options for resistance. But we actually do. But it will take A little bit more work of looking at varieties you maybe can't buy common seed, you're gonna have to maybe shell out a few more dollars. So. Good point, Christine. If you can't or don't want to spray a fungicide, you do have to manage some other way and that might mean a different crop or it means you may be spending some extra dollars on a different price. Potentially. Yeah. Ruminants are despicable years. Sorry. We usually have options. That's true. Joanna, what were you gonna say? Oh, I just said gocereals ca we do. I know that it's. Again, I know that like you said, you can't necessarily get the common varieties that we might be looking for, but we do ratings every year and the differences between varieties is quite striking. So seek out those varieties with good crown rust resistance. Yeah, I will tell you that I, when I went to order oats years ago now and I said no, I want like something specific, they looked at me like I had three heads because they were like no, this is what everyone gets. And I'm like well I'm not everyone. Okay, so there you go. That's not what I'm getting. Okay, Mark's got a good question. So touching back on the barley yellow dwarf virus. So you, you mentioned Joanna, they, you know, maybe not having cover crop oats right next to where you're going to put in say your winter wheat or your winter barley, etc. But it does it like does rotation matter? As in is it situational basically? Or let's say, you know, if you are in a 1 in 3 or a 1 in 4 rotation for a winter wheat, is it lower risk? It's more situational. Sorry, I made my Internet I think is not great now it's more situational. So it's very much so dependent on what the aphid pressure is that year. So if there are lots of aphids out there, there's lots of green material for them to be feeding on. Whether you have a good crop rotation or not, they could still transfer that virus. So unfortunately, I mean that's why I say if we can maybe remove some of the green bridge around particular fields. But again, this is not necessarily possible. It's unfortunately just an unintended consequence of us doing a good job with COVID crops. And so if you've, if you've got just got lots of material there, they're going to be there. And can I just add in, it's super easy to end up in a very grass heavy rotation in a situation where you're trying to feed livestock. Right? Because cereals are grasses, corn is a grass. Perennial grasses obviously are grasses. So even though we're rotating crops, there's a lot of pests and diseases that do bridge between those. So while, yeah, we. We really like triticale, it's doing some great things in rations. This is also why abandoning alfalfa, abandoning red clover, having, like, not having a legume in that rotation is a risky move because you don't have a totally different crop family in there to break up some of those pest and disease cycles. Yeah, we still love alfalfa, everybody. It's still. Okay. Also, Jason Vogt wanted to point out, and I will say this might be the most adorable name for an aphid is the bird cherry oat aphid is apparently the one that spreads it. That is an adorable name, everyone, for a very naughty pest. Okay, so I did want to point that out. And also, Jana says we have had rust in our perennial English rye and it definitely affects DMI intake. Especially noticeable since we only use froster forage for our dairy and can't mask it with corn silage. So, yeah, definitely, depending on the level of infection, can be an issue. Now, if it's just a cover and you're just going to terminate it, maybe you don't care so much. But if you're feeding it or grazing it, certainly an issue. Okay, we do have only a few minutes left and I do not want to forget that we have a QR code to share as well. But I did want to touch on the other thing, which is snow mould, which apparently people can be allergic to, which I just love. Anyway, seriously, some people have, like, allergies to snow moulds. Okay. So they should not be agronomists. Yeah, they should not be agronomists. Let's just. Although I did know a 4 specialist with hay fever ones, so I'm just pointing that out anyway. Okay, with. This is sort of like the whole Spider man thing. With great fall growth comes great risk of snow mould. Joanna. So walk us through. Is there anything we can do about snow mould or is it just one of those things to watch for? Yeah, so. Well, I think there are a couple things we could do. So basically what happens is if we get a lot of snowfall before the ground freezes, it provides a really, really good place to insulate pathogens and allow them to survive over winter. And so, unfortunately, again, with this whole. I know I am a broken record with planting dates, but with pushing tritical and winter cereals in general, you know, all winter cereals are susceptible to it comes risk for snow mould. So more of the top growth, the earlier the planting date, the more risk for snow mould. So one of the ways to manage it, again, isn't the great one, and probably not my first choice is to delay planting. Now, this doesn't happen every year, of course. Last year was one of the worst years. I mean, it's the worst year I've ever seen snow mould in my life. And asking people who've been around even longer than me would say that this was one of our worst snow mould years. And so, yeah, you can see there, you'll see it looks almost like mushy, rotting material through in patches throughout the field. And so you can see a couple plants there that I dug up from our own field where you can see some plants have started to grow out of it. But once you see that plant in the bottom left there, where all the material is dead, the crown is dead, that's not going to survive. So typically in the spring, once things start warming up, we'll see snow or the plants grow out of that snow mould. And generally that yield impact is low. But if you see those dead crowns, you know, in some of these areas that I scouted this past year, you know, there was 70% stand loss in some of those parts of the field. So again, when we're scouting for, for survival, the same rules applies here when it comes to snow mould. Now, Tom Kelser out of, again, New York State, he was having the same issues with this as we try to really push yields with triticale, you know, how do we manage it? And so one of the things that he tried was he applied 0.7 to 0.75 pounds an acre, so very, very low rates of foliar sulphur. And he did that prior to the snowfall in the fall. So as long as it gets on there before the snowfall comes, he saw really, really good success with this. And so we did put a trial this, this past fall in New Liskerd, hoping we could try to repeat those results and are doing something similar to see if we can get some response to that. The other thing though, is that variety selection is huge when it comes to snow mould. And so that significantly helps even in some cases the genetics, if they become overwhelmed, the sulphur is not necessarily going to completely help you there. So genetics plays a key role there. And so there's a couple of varieties and I'm not trying to point out any particular company or anything like that. But there are a couple like Snow Cat, for example, ab, Snowcat and Bronco are two that are quite good from snow mould resistance. So for growers who are concerned about this, again, this was a widespread issue last year. I'm anticipating that this coming spring as well. But there are some areas that honestly get this year over year, and so they should seek out varieties with good snow mould resistance. And then again, hopefully we'll have some Ontario answers here after this season. But based on some work out in New York, you know, less than a pound an acre of sulphur seems to do the trick and really reduce the amount of snow mould incidents. So, Christine, this is definitely something. I mean, I see it in perennial stands too. I mean, it, it happens. But to Joanna's point, a lot of times, you know, the plants will grow through it, grow out of it, etc. Have you noticed an increased incidence given that? I mean, we've come off of four winters that were very like, pretty late starting and, and those sorts of things. And unlike this year, where it was, at least where I am, it was frozen solid by the time the snow came. But that isn't always the case. So is this an increasing concern or just one of those ones that's sort of always there? I think that's difficult to say because people are not scouting grassy hay fields and pastures the way that they scout their grain crops. So I did get a report of some orchard grass that the agronomists thought was snowmobile, and we were able to confirm from the photos that likely it was. And orchard grass, I think, would be the first perennial species I would look at just because we know that. It. Has a reputation for being less winter hardy than fescues, than brome grasses, than some of the other species that we use quite commonly. So, yeah, perennial ryegrass would be the one that has the reputation being the least winter hardy. Orchard grass is next in line. And that's. I wonder if that might be some snow mould susceptibility playing into that. That maybe wasn't called out specifically by name in the past, but I did get a report in of some orchard grass that suffered from snow mould damage this past winter just because the conditions were perfect for snow mould. Okay, question quickly. Elemental sulphur or what kind of sulphur, Joanna? Oh, good question. Yeah, so in Tom Kelser's work, he used a product called Max in sulphur, which has thiosulfate in it, I believe. And we used an alpine product. So not. Not elemental sulphur. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Very cool. Okay, before I forget, producer Jay, if you would, we can put up the slide. Ta da. There is a QR code for the knowledge sharing event, the KS for cover crop. So if you are in need of that, please take a screenshot, hold your phone up, whatever that may be and let us know if you have any issues. You can always email me lsmithealagriculture.com but there it is. The QR code for the KSC, the knowledge sharing event, if you've got off caf project. So there you go. Okay. And that does it for tonight's episode of the Agronomists. Thank you, Christine and Joanna, for joining me here on the show. Wonderful to have you both on. Thank you for saying yes. And you know what, Christine? I think I might be able to squeak in like two or three Forge episodes this year because I'm starting so early. Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty excited about it, I won't lie. And yes. And Joanna, welcome to the dark side. Okay, There you go. Anyway, okay, thank you, of course, everyone, for joining us in the chat as well. And next week we're going to talk blackleg and verticillium of canola, so it should be an interesting one as well. 8:00pm Eastern, of course, right here on the Agronomist. Cheers, everybody. Have a great week. Sam.