Short-Term Winter Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Cover Crop Grazing Influence on Calf Growth, Grain Yield, and Soil Properties.

Winter cover cropping has many agronomic benefits and can provide forages base for spring livestock grazing. Winter cover crop grazing has shown immediate economic benefits through increased animal production. Winter wheat pasture grazing is common in beef cow-calf production and stocker operations. Grazing on winter wheat cultivars until joint stage has benefits of increased grain yield as compared to non-grazed winter wheat production. The short-term grazing window of winter wheat crop allows agriculture producers to integrate livestock production with crop production systems. Here, we present preliminary data of a five-year research project looking on sustainability of short-term livestock integration with crop production. We compared animal weight gains and resulted in soil properties of a 3.6 ha winter wheat crop field grazed by eight steer/heifer calves for three weeks with a similar set of pre weaned steers/heifers grazed on a tall fescue [Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.)] winter pasture field similar in extent. Results showed that winter wheat forage quality was superior to grazed tall fescue in terms of DCP (29 3.4 vs. 12.6 0.9), ADF (27.2 1.7 vs. 42.9 1.7), NDF (36.6 1.7 vs. 64.6 1.4), and TDN (60.2 1.8 vs. 51.8 2.2). After three weeks, steers/heifers grazed on winter wheat cover crop reported 1212 g d^-1 body weight gain as compared to 857 g d^-1 on tall fescue pasture. The soil properties and wheat grain yield induced by short-term livestock grazing will be presented.