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If farming in cold winter areas, brassicas can provide a lot of low-cost grazing feed much more economically than silage, hay or bought feed. See Forage Crops > Brassicas for a photo of Kale more than a metre tall yielding 15 tonnes per hectare in Canada in October.
If farming in the recent drought areas of Australia and New Zealand, you can expect droughts again because evidence shows that they are caused by air pollution from China. The large particles from their soot make the large drops of rain that fall out of lows in Queensland and Northern New Zealand causing floods, and leave little moisture for the south. Farmers who had insufficient pasture last summer or winter for their grazing animals, should sow forage crops in late spring or early autumn, to avoid a recurrence. Forage crops are one of the best solutions, provided yields are at least 12,000 kg of dry matter (DM) per hectare (11,000 lb per acre) for brassicas, and at least 25,000 kg per hectare for maize (corn). The spreadsheet ‘Pasture, Silage, Hay & Crop Costs’ allows users to enter their own figures to decide which is best. New Zealand figures show that to grow a crop of turnips or Pasja costs about 30% less per kg of DM than making and feeding silage or hay, after allowing for the bare land value. The higher feed value of brassicas produces more milk or meat than from silage. The cost of growing and feeding a brassica forage crop, after allowing for bare land valued at NZ$30,000 per hectare (US$9,000/acre), increases the crop costs, but a yield of 12,000 kg per hectare from the crops over their 21 week growing period makes them better value than pasture yielding about 6,000 kg over the same time. Brassicas also have a higher feed value than maize or pastures in late summer. The cost of growing, ensiling and feeding maize (corn) silage is about 44 cents per kg on land valued at NZ$30,000 per hectare. Buying maize, ensiling and feeding it, costs about the same as home grown pasture silage and hay, but the maize imports organic matter which increases fertility and frees your land for animal production, however, growing grain on expensive dairy farm land is not economical. It is normal to crop the worst paddocks on the farm. To obtain the yields above requires the paddocks’ fertility to be improved by feeding out hay and/or silage on them, and/or using them as sacrifice paddocks when on/off grazing in winter or summer droughts, so as to avoid pasture damage on good paddocks and wasted energy from animals walking and grazing pastures to the ground for very little extra feed. If needed, based on pasture analysis and soil and earthworm observation, lime should be applied for summer and winter crops. See Elements > Calcium. It should then be chisel ploughed in. See "Cultivating" for how chisel ploughing improves the fertility and clover health and growth. Northern and Southern Hemisphere forage crops should have the same procedure of increasing fertility by using the paddocks as sacrifice ones before growing a forage crop. The higher crop yields will make the effort well worthwhile. Grazing the crops will leave animal manure so improve the fertility for subsequent pastures. See the spreadsheet Pasture, Silage, Hay & Crop Costs |