What are forages?

Most dictionaries define forages as food for browsing or grazing animals, especially domestic livestock. They are much more than that for many of us. Forages are grown to be consumed by livestock, provide habitat for wildlife, and to protect soil from erosion.  Forages may be native or introduced. Some of the introduced forages such as bermudagrass have been here for so long that we sometimes incorrectly think of them as native.

Groups of Forage Species

The two main groups of forages are grasses and legumes. Many of the grasses such as wheat, corn, milo, etc., are also grown for grain. The same goes for some of the legumes. Peanut and soybean are primarily cultivated for their seeds, but they can provide excellent forage.

Within the grass group, we have warm-season grasses that are productive during the warm (or hot) part of the year and stop growth before frost. Cool-season grasses, by contrast, grow primarily when it is cool and tend to struggle in the summer. They survive cold temperatures and remain green but produce little growth when temperatures fall below about 35^oF.

Other plant groups can be forages including, many of those we consider weeds, both broad leaf and grassy weeds. Some examples include kochia, pigweed, sedges, etc. Most forages are tough and aggressive, which are also characteristics of weeds.

Uses of Forage Species

The most economical way to harvest forages is with grazing animals, but forages are frequently harvested.. They may be harvested as hay or silage to be fed later.

Another use for forage is to leave it on the soil as a cover crop or standing for wild life cover and food. Forages may also be incorporated into the soil as a green manure crop.

Although we do not normally think of forages as being important components in urban landscapes and along roadsides, many of our most common forage crops also serve as turfgrass, ornamentals, or as conservation plants. The grass in the lawn and the ornamental grasses and certain trees may be the same species that we use as traditional forages. Urban lands and highway infrastructure make up about 1 million acres.

How Important are Forages to Oklahoma?

We have approximately 44 million acres of land in Oklahoma. Of this total, there are roughly 12 million acres each of forestland and rangeland. Virtually all of the forested land is located in extreme southeastern Oklahoma. Rangeland is scattered across all of Oklahoma, with the largest parcels in the Osage Hills located in north central Oklahoma, the Cross Timbers region in central Oklahoma, and the midgrass prairie region located in the west. Most native grasses are in the rangelands.

Cropland comprises around 9 million acres in the state. Although row crops are grown throughout the state, the largest contiguous acres of row crops are located in western Oklahoma and in the Panhandle. Wheat production occupies 6 to 7 million acres with approximately 3 million acres that are typically grazed in a normal year and almost 2 million acres of that is used solely as a grazed forage crop.

Pastureland production makes up around 10 million acres. Due to the differences in soil types, precipitation amounts, and temperature gradients in Oklahoma, there are many forages that are grown for pasture and hay.

Bermudagrass makes up the largest number of acres of a single forage due to its wide range of adaptability. Although the exact number of acres is difficult to pinpoint, we have probably around 4 million acres of bermudagrass grown either for pasture and/or hay. There are numerous other warm-season perennial forage grass grown in Oklahoma. Most of these are grown on less than 500,000 acres and are not adapted to wide geographic regions. These include the Old World bluestems and weeping lovegrass, which are grown mainly in western Oklahoma. Bahiagrass is another warm-season, perennial forage grass that is important to the southeastern corner of Oklahoma.

There are far fewer cool-season forage grasses grown in Oklahoma. Tall fescue is the most commonly grown cool-season, perennial forage. There are slightly over a million acres of tall fescue grown in Oklahoma. Virtually all tall fescue is grown in the eastern one-third of the state. The most important cool-season annual forage grass is ryegrass with somewhat less than a million acres grown in the state for forage.

Many legumes are used as forage and in pasture systems in Oklahoma. Alfalfa is the most important legume grown in Oklahoma with over 300,000 acres of production, primarily for hay. As a group, arrowleaf clover, red clover, and white clover are grown on about one-half million acres. Most of these are grown in combination with forage grasses.  The acreage of annual lespedeza is almost impossible to determine, but its presence is important to certain areas of eastern Oklahoma.  Sericea lespedeza, a useful perennial forage legume or a persistent weed, depending on its management and use, occupies thousands of acres across the state.

Daren Redfearn and John Caddel
Plant & Soil Sciences Department
Oklahoma State University