Small Grains Forage Management and Yield Evaluation Methods For Central Texas.

Hard Red Winter (HRW) and Soft Red Winter (HRW) wheat classes (Triticum aestivum L.) and oat (Avena sativa L.) are commonly established as a source of winter and spring forage for cattle grazing in many regions of Texas and the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Small grains used in these grazed systems offer the flexibility of management for season long forage production or production of both forage and grain (dual-purpose). Many commercially available and experimental cultivars are continually evaluated on their ability to produce grain, but little yield data is available on wheat and oats under dual-purpose management systems and fertility recommendations for these systems are also lacking. To address these issues, thirty wheat and ten oat cultivars were evaluated under varying N fertility levels for forage and grain yield in two-year studies over three locations in Central Texas. Results indicated oats produced less forage than either class of wheat. For grain production, soft red winter wheat performed better under irrigation, but in dryland situations both wheat classes performed equally. Pre-plant N fertilizer significantly reduced stand establishment in dry environments. The 67 kg ha-1 pre-plant N and the 45 kg ha-1 top-dress rates produced the highest forage yield. Nutritive value generally increased as N application rate increased, even when no yield increase was observed. Hand clipping and canopy height both correlated very well with full plot harvest and visual ratings and NDVI had moderate relationships with full plot harvest. Ground cover and dry matter yield were variable and only weakly correlated.