Rye Grass Harvest

We finished up the Ryegrass harvest just before the rain started. This year's crop ended up with excellent quality and a really good yield. The entire crop has been rolled into 1400 lb bales and wrapped to keep all the oxygen out. By keeping the oxygen out this grass will now go through an anaerobic fermentation process known as ensiling. Think of it as a similar process to making any lacto-fermented vegetable product like sauerkraut. This crop is naturally preserved in this manner until it is needed for feed. The cows prefer this hands down over dry hay, and not only is it more palatable, but it is also more digestible thanks to the lactofermentation. The only thing better is if the cow takes the bite of lush green grass straight from the pasture. Of course we allow them to graze straight from the pasture too. However, we all know that in our Georgia weather, there are only a few times of the year that we can have lush green grass like we have in the pictures above. So it is up to us as farmers to capture the bounty of the land in Spring when things are lush, and provide it to our cattle throughout the year. We do have a few acres of spring oats that will be harvested in a couple of weeks, and then we move on to summer forages.