UC tests deep-rooted crops as forage for dairy cattle
nitrates before they reach underground water already affected by years of dairy manure, and both are also able to pro- duce quality forage with relatively little irrigation water. “There’s no lignin in beets, so it has high digest ibi l i ty,” Kaf fka said. “At Legacy Dairy, we ensiled it with almond hulls to absorb the sugar, and it also im- proves the hulls. It was $50 to $60 a ton of feed when you bagged it with the al- mond hulls.” Once grown widely in California, acreage of sugar beets has dwindled to around 25,000 acres as more lucrative alternatives took over. But safflower could be the superstar when it comes to drought management, Kaffka said, because it canproduce a crop on just 12 inches of water, whereas sug- ar beets are deep rooted but still need to find 30 inches. “Safflower is the deepest-rooted an- nual we know,” Kaffka said. “I have seen roots all the way down to 12 feet. It is also good for weed management, because it smothers other things out.” Safflower is traditionally grown in the spring as a drought-tolerant seed crop used for oil, but Kaffka said he has seen generally promising results in his ear- ly trials at growing it as a winter forage crop, planted in October and harvested the next spring. California farmers harvest around 50,000acres of safflower a year, with the li- on’s share for seeds to be pressed into oil.
“The quality is very similar to small- grain silage,” Kaffka said. “It has alsobeen stable in storage when wrapped.” One management issue is whether to harvest safflower relatively early for the best forage, or leave it in the ground a little longer to maximize the impact in bringing water and nitrogen back up to- ward the surface. “Silage quality in April is equivalent to small grains,” Kaffka said. “Keeping i t in the ground longer, unt i l May, got you less yield but you recovered more water.” The research indicates dairy farmers working to manage water and nitrogen more efficiently may be able to help themselves by planting deep-rooted winter forage crops such as sugar beets and safflower. Kaffka said his future research on saf- flower as winter forage will concentrate on possible planting and harvest dates, nitrogen fertilizer rates and the ability of the crop to manage for water and nutri- ents at different depths. In his preliminary trials, Kaffka used zero nitrogen or 100 or 200 pounds, but said he hopes to develop more precise recommendations. With sugar beets, he is looking to do feeding studies and some economic modeling onhowefficiently the cropuses the land to produce forage. ( Bo b J o hn s o n i s a r e p o r t e r i n Sacramento. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@gmail.com.)
supply a component of high-quality feed, Kaffka said. Legacy Ranches is already moving to adopt sustainable options, installing methane digesters at each of their two dairies last year that turn gas coming off the manure into clean energy. Thebusiness traces its rootsbackacen- tury to the days when Frank Fernandes immigrated to theCentral Valley fromthe Portuguese Azores Islands and took up work in the dairy business. Today, three of Frank’s grandsons— Frank, Jared and Josh Fernandes—own and operate the ranch and have made a commitment tosustainabledairy farming. CalGren Renewable Fuels installed the digesters last year, andmethane from Legacy Ranches and other neighboring farms is piped to the green energy com- pany’s central facility, where it is turned into ethanol. This clean energy is used to power the CalGren plant, with the remainder of the natural gas injected into the pipeline that serves local homes. Legacy Ranches also installed a solar energy farm on the property, and uses goats for orchard weed control as part of a programof regenerative agriculture. Both sugar beets and safflower are strong candidates to mine the soil for
ByBob Johnson Typically, the Fernandes brothers growwheat, corn, alfalfa and oats as feed crops on the land next to their third-gen- eration Legacy Ranches dairy farmnear Pixley, and pistachios as another source of revenue. But last winter, they agreed when University of California Cooperative Extens ion spec ia l i s t Steve Kaf f ka asked them to take part in an experi- ment at trying deep-rooted crops such as sugar beets and safflower to better manage water and nutr ients whi le producing feed. “Canwe use crops we know to be deep rooted, like sugar beets and safflower, to improve water and nutrient manage- ment?” Kaffka asked. Kaffka is the expert on safflower and sugar beets within the Cooperative Extension system; he discussed the possibility that both could serve as dry- times winter forage during anAlfalfa and Forage Virtual Field Day this fall. So far, there have been promising results in the experiment with sugar beets as a winter forage crop that pro- duces large volumes of feed for the cows while using extensive roots to mine the soil for water and nitrogen. The first year, yield was an impressive 58 tons of roots an acre that look to
CIMIS REPORT | www.cimis.water.ca.gov
CALIFORNIA IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
For the week November 19 - November 25, 2020
ETO (INCHES/WEEK)
YEAR
3.0
THIS YEAR
2.5
LAST YEAR AVERAGE YEAR
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
MACDOEL II (236)
BIGGS (244)
DAVIS (06)
MANTECA (7O)
FIREBAUGH (7)
SALINAS-SOUTH (214)
FIVE POINTS (2)
SHAFTER (5)
TEMECULA (62)
IMPERIAL (87)
THIS YEAR LAST YEAR AVG. YEAR % FROM AVG.
.22 .34 .27 -20
.46 .59 .33 42
.49 .65 .45 9
.40 .52 .40 0
.45 .54 .33 38
.53 .74 .42 31
.25 .32 .72 -28
.43 .49 .43 0
.54 .52 .72 -25
.66 .57 .66 0
W eekly reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is the rate of water use (evapotranspiration—the sum of soil evaporation and crop transpiration) for healthy pasture grass. Multiplying ETo by the appropriate “crop coefficient” gives estimates of the ET for other crops. For example, assume ETo on June 15 is 0.267 inches and the crop coefficient for corn on that day is 1.1. Multiplying ETo by the coefficient (0.26 inches x 1.1) results in a corn ET of 0.29 inches. This
information is useful in determining the amount and timing of irriga- tion water. Contact Richard Snyder, UC Davis, for information on coefficients, 530-752-4628. The 10 graphs provide weekly ETo rates for selected areas for average year, last year and this year. The ETo information is provided by the California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS) of the California Department of Water Resources.
For information contact the DWR district office or DWR state headquarters:
SACRAMENTO HEADQUARTERS: 916-651-9679 • 916-651-7218
NORTHERN REGION: Red Bluff 530-529-7301
NORTH CENTRAL REGION: West Sacramento 916-376-9630
SOUTH CENTRAL REGION:
SOUTHERN REGION:
Fresno 559-230-3334
Glendale 818-500-1645 x247 or x243
December 2, 2020 Ag Alert 17
Powered by FlippingBook