Turnips Low-Cost Option for Some Cattle Farmers
US - From the road, it looks as if the cattle are grazing bare ground.
29 January 2008
1 minute read
Dennis Elbrader, the Kansas State University Extension agriculture agent in Cherokee County, is experimenting with turnips after trying them on a smaller scale last year.
He has 116 steers grazing on 55 acres of turnips he planted in early September. The cattle began grazing in the middle of November, eating turnip greens. They now are eating the bulbs.
Elbrader expects to have them on the field until the end of the month. The only supplement is some older fescue near the field. Through the middle of January he provided five bales of quality grass hay. The bales averaged 1,500 pounds. Water is available from a pond.
Calves averaged 600 pounds when turned on to the turnips and he estimates they now weigh more than 800 pounds.
Source: Joplin Globe
