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Harvestable buffers serve as safety net
An extension specialist says buffers that can be harvested provide multiple benefits to farmers.
Michigan State University Extension Senior Educator Marilyn Thelen tells Brownfield a recent conservation farm tour highlighted the management practice as a way to protect water quality while still providing feed for dairy cows. She says the farmer planted a grass mix around farm fields, ditches and water ways to prevent soil and nutrient runoff.
“That provides a really, really nice mat to hold that soil in place and since you’re harvesting it, you’re taking any nutrients it traps off in the crop.”
She says the farmer harvests the buffers three times a year for dried hay or silage hay. “It’s a grass hay, but it comes off at 18 percent protein, crude protein, so it’s a really nice feed when you manage it as a feed.”
An added benefit she says is that the buffers show custom manure applicators where to stop spreading. Thelen says a good grass mix buffer should have a livelihood of about 10 years before it needs to be replanted.
AUDIO: Interview with Marilyn Thelen (5:18 mp3):
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