Summer Forage Woes

We had an excellent year this spring with our cool season forages. Ryegrass and Spring Oats were harvested in abundance, and that's kind of how we try to plan it. We get much more reliable weather and production from those cool season crops, so we try to lean on them heavily. After spring I thought that just a small harvest of a summer annual would top off the season great, and put us in a good place to have enough stored forage to get through the winter. One thing led to another and success with summer annuals just hasn't worked out in our favor. We had a beautiful field of mixed summer grasses that would have been dairy quality. Unfortunately, just a couple of days before it was to be harvested, it became completely overtaken by armyworm. They basically ate the entire field before we even knew what happened. Those little devils can devour summer forage in a hurry. Even though we moved in with the cutter immediately, the loss was around 90%. What would have yielded 200 high-quality bales only yielded 20 mediocre-quality bales. Additionally, we planted around 60 acres of millet. Unfortunately, it was planted just in front of a three-week dry spell. Very little of the millet germinated, and what did is very patchy. Like most endeavors I guess, you win some and you lose some. I think we'll make it through the winter with the forage we have, but I would like to have a little more cushion. This year reinforces how much more reliable the cool season crops are and I think we will increase the acreage of ryegrass to take advantage of its predictability going forward.