Forage production, economic performance indicators and beef cattle nutritional suitability of multispecies annual crop mixtures in northwestern Alberta, Canada

Abstract

A 2-year field study compared annual crop mixtures and monoculture cereal crops (controls) for forage yield and quality value for beef cattle production. Each of the mixtures consisted of 2 to 9 crop species. The cropping treatments investigated significantly influenced (P < 0.05) forage dry matter (DM) yield, quality and economic performance parameters. Forage DM yield was up to 9.25 t/ha for the mixtures compared to 7.72 t/ha for the control crops. Forage yield advantage from mixtures was up to 50% over controls. Forage crude protein (CP) was >13.0% for most mixtures, while CP for controls was ≤12.0%. All mixtures and controls mostly exceeded the suggested required levels of K, Mg, Na, S, Fe and Zn for beef cattle. The four top ranked mixtures in terms of marginal returns and benefit/cost ratio were mixtures #4, 8, 10 and 12 in that order. Study results demonstrated that growing a minimum of 3 annual crops, rather than 1 or 2 crops, increased forage production and offered a forage-based diet that, which in most cases, was able to adequately meet the nutritional requirements of beef cattle. The mixture with the highest forage yield consisted of crops from 3 different species categories: Poaceae, Leguminosae and Brassicaceae.