Grazing of spring and winter cereals in southwest Saskatchewan

Abstract

A pasture system that combines the early high productivity of a spring cereal and the late-season growth ability of a winter cereal vegetative tillers may provide an important forage/pasture resource in southwestern Saskatchewan. At the Semiarid Agricultural Research Centre- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, SK, two annual cereals, a spring barley, cultivar AC Lacombe, and a winter rye, Prima, were seeded in early May of 2001 into four pastures each 1.3 ha. Two pastures utilized steers that were implanted (Component™ E-S) and had received CRC rumensin while the other two pastures utilized steers with no implant or CRC rumensin. Results found that the implanted and CRC rumensin treated steers were more efficient in converting the cereal forage to gains than the control steers. Average daily gains of treated steers were higher than the control group and were 1.2 kg d-1 vs 0.7 kg d-1, respectively. Grazing days and total kg of livestock production per ha for treated verses control treatments were 133 verses 131 and 12.1 verses 5.5, respectively. It is possible that a synergistic and/or additive effect may have occurred through the use of the implant and rumensin treatments and resulted in a higher than expected improvement in animal performance.