Emergency Forage Options
by Joel Bagg, Forage Specialist & District Sales Manager, Quality Seeds Ltd
March 2026

Many areas of eastern Canada, experienced severe, extended drought in 2025. Forage yields were dramatically reduced. Some planted spring cereals, cereal-pea mixtures, and winter triticale last summer and fall. With cold winter temperatures, livestock have been burning through feed. For many of these farmers, carryover forage inventories this spring will be very tight. What are the emergency forage options available in 2026 to rebuild these depleted inventories? There are many different scenarios, and each situation is different.

What if my winter triticale is damaged by snow mould?
Winter triticale has become a popular, high quality forage suitable for extremely high nutrient quality forage with high fibre digestibility. A record number of acres were planted last fall. Keys to success are early planting, variety selection, nitrogen and sulphur application, and timely harvest at the flag leaf stage. Refer to “High Quality Winter Triticale Forage” at

With lots of snow last winter on unfrozen ground, some snow mould damage to triticale, wheat and fall rye was reported in the spring of 2025. Some stands were injured but most of these were harvested with reduced yields and crop rotations were maintained the same. Unfortunately there were some stands that were completely taken out and a new crop (mostly corn silage) was planted. There are varietal differences in snow mould resistance, with no reports of snow mould with some varieties, such as Quality Seeds AB Snowcat. Winter triticale stands should be scouted in early spring. Completely dead leaf tissue is easy to spot, but check the growing point to assess if the growing point is still alive (base of tillers still green, new white root growth). If the growing point is alive, it can recover and grow out of it, but with reduced yield. Refer to “High Quality Winter Triticale Forage” (www.qualityseeds.ca/high-quality-winter-triticale-forage ).

What if my alfalfa is winterkilled or winter damaged?

Alfalfa winterkill and severe winter injury are always a potential concern, resulting in insufficient forage inventories and forage quality for the coming year. It is difficult to predict alfalfa winterkill, but there are some risk factors coming together this year in some areas (fall cutting out of necessity, reduced winterhardening from a warm fall, ice sheeting, etc).
Damage from alfalfa winterkill, winter injury, and disease becomes worse with time, not better. Dead or dying plants will not contribute to yield. Walk fields in early spring after plants have broken dormancy to determine if alfalfa stands have thinned, and assess if plants are dead or unhealthy. Check older stands, field that are slow to green-up, poorly drained fields, field with low fertility, and fields that were aggressively cut last fall during the Critical Fall Harvest Period. It is very important to consider the health of alfalfa plants, in addition to plant or stem densities. Inspect fields in several locations. Dig up plants with a shovel to get at least 6 inches of root. Using a sharp knife, slice the crown and root longitudinally. Look for:
•large, symmetrical crowns with good leaf and bud vigour,
•resistance to bark peeling
•lateral roots should be healthy and with good nodulation.
•healthy plants will have a good internal root colour (white to cream colour) and firm in texture
•diseased plants will have dark brown, mushy areas of crown and root rot.

If the stand is winterkilled or winter injured with low yield potential, there are two options:
•change your rotation by planting corn silage or sudangrass, and reseed alfalfa or alfalfa grass in other field (possibly with a cereal, cereal-pea or sudangrass nurse crop)
•take an early first-cut and plant sudangrass or corn silage.

Refer to “Check Alfalfa Stands This Spring & Make A Plan” ( www.qualityseeds.ca/check-alfalfa-stands-for-winterkill-winter-injury/ ) .

How can I increase the productivity of my pastures
Rotational grazing can greatly improve pasture productivity. Avoid turning livestock onto pasture too early in the spring. It may seem counterintuitive, but that will greatly reduce total pasture productivity over the year.

Frost seeding by broadcasting forage seed on frozen ground is a simple, low-cost method of improving the yield and quality of older, thinning, “run out” pastures. It relies on the freeze-thaw action of the soil in late winter to provide adequate seed-to-soil contact. This window commonly occurs from about mid- to late-March in most of eastern Canada. Moisture from melting snow and spring rains helps early germination and growth. Broadcast seeders are commonly mounted on ATVs or a tractor 3-point hitch.

Red clover is the most common species used in frost seeding. It establishes early, quickly and easily. It is relatively inexpensive but is short-lived, so many farmers frost seed it at 6 – 8 lbs/acre every 2 – 3 years. It is a cost-effective way to provide nitrogen to the pasture stand.

White clover is commonly seeded at 1 – 2 lbs/acre. Because it spreads and thickens with stolens over time, it can be more persistent. Grasses are more challenging to frost seed than
legumes because the seed is coarse, less dense, light and fluffy, so proper seed-to-soil contact is more difficult. Higher seeding rates can help compensate for a lower rate of successful germination and establishment. The best frost seeding success is usually achieved with perennial ryegrass, festulolium and orchardgrass. These species germinate more quickly, with strong seedling vigour and growth. However, ryegrass and festololium are less persistent.

Refer to “Frost Seeding Pastures” www.qualityseeds.ca/frost-seeding-pastures/ .

What can I plant in April / May for early forage?
Planted in April or early May, spring cereals such as forage oats and forage spring triticale (AAC Delight), with or without forage peas, can provide some early forage. These species can be planted alone, but are often used as a nurse crop when establishing alfalfa-grass. They are cool season crops, preferring early seeding, cooler moderate temperatures, and moisture. Oats and spring triticale usually require 50 – 55 days of growth after planting to reach boot-stage. Planted mid-April, they would be ready to harvest early June, providing early forage. Planted in early-May, they might be ready about Canada Day. Of course, cutting at earlier maturity improves forage quality at the expense of yield, and later cutting improves yield at the expense of forage quality and palatability. Quality declines rapidly after the boot-stage.

Forage oats, forage triticale and forage peas have been bred for forage yield and quality rather than grain yield. They have a higher leaf-to-stem ratio than conventional types. This year, Quality Seeds has introduced a new forage spring triticale variety AAC Delight. This variety is a high-yielding, spring-type, reduced-awn (nearly beardless) triticale developed for superior silage, palatability and digestibility. Rust on oats during wet springs and falls can sometimes be an issue, reducing quality and palatability. This issue is eliminated with the use of spring triticale. Combining spring triticale in a bunk with winter triticale can help balance out your feed ration with similar forages.

Adding peas to a cereal will increase forage quality with higher crude protein (2 – 3% points), digestible energy, and potential feed intake, but often do not significantly increase yield. Pea seed adds to the cost. With a rainy season, lodging, heavy windrows and slow inadequate wilting can be issues with underseeded stands that contain peas. This can challenge proper fermentation, and can also damage underseedings if left in a windrow for extended periods of time.

Can sudangrass make high yielding, high quality forage to fill the void?
Sudangrass, such as the newly introduced Quality Seeds Challenger Brand, can provide significant yields of high-quality forage, either in a regular rotation or as an emergency forage option. This warm-season annual fits well as a double crop forage option after winter cereal (triticale, rye) forage harvest. Also, terminating winter injured, low yielding alfalfa fields after first-cut and planting to sudangrass can provide emergency forage that will be needed to make up the shortfall. They can also be planted into unseeded soybean and corn acres during a wet year in June or July to provide additional forage. Using sudangrass as a nurse crop for alfalfa-grass new seedings is also being done very successfully, providing a new forage stand the next year. When properly fertilized and harvested at the correct stage, forage quality can be excellent, with high fibre digestibility and decent CP suitable for high producing dairy cows.

Sudangrass is a warm-seaason grass species, and requires a soil temperature of at least 15.5 – 18°C (60 – 65°F) for optimal germination, rapid emergence and growth. This typically occurs the last week of May or early-June. It does not perform well when seeded earlier into cold soils, and is very susceptible to frost. Proper nitrogen and sulphur fertilizer is necessary for both yield and quality. A suggested rule of thumb is 45 lbs N and about 5 lbs of S (in sulphate form) for each tonne of expected dry matter yield. For high quality dairy feed, first-cut typically occurs at 40 – 45 days after planting, or 45 inches, whichever comes first, when it is still vegetative. Regrowth is very rapid, and a second-cut is usually ready 30 – 35 days later. If planting was timely, a third-cut is possible in the fall before frost. Yield potential for well managed, high quality sudangrass is typically about 2 tonnes per acre or more per cutting. This forage species has the potential to make a lot of quality feed and is a terrific emergency forage option. With proper harvest timing and N&S fertilizer, crude protein levels approaching 16 – 18% and fibre digestibility NDFD30 % levels in the high 60s and low 70s are often reported, making it exceptional feed quality.

Refer to “Sudangrass & Sorghum-Sudangrass Forage Options” www.qualityseeds.ca/sudangrass-sorghum-sudangrass-forage-options-2/ .

What forage can I plant after winter triticale harvest in late-May / early June?
The most common crop planted after winter triticale is corn silage, but sudangrass is also an excellent option. When double cropping by following winter triticale with corn silage, delayed corn planting will require that a lower CHU corn hybrid be used, reducing the corn silage yield potential. This potential yield loss will be much less in higher CHU areas of southwestern Ontario than in lower CHU areas. For example, in an area <2,800 CHU, delaying planting until May 30th may reduce corn silage yield by 15%, or by 25% when planting on June 5th. In 2,800 – 3,200 CHU areas, planting on May 30th could reduce yield by 7%, and by 11% planting on June 5th. (Refer to OMAFRA Publication 811, Agronomy Guide For Field Crops). While you are potentially gaining 2 or more tonnes of extremely high-quality triticale forage, depending on your circumstances (CHU area, harvest date and subsequent planting date), you theoretically could be giving up 0.75 to 2.3 tonnes of corn silage dry matter yield. Additionally, if the intention is to follow corn silage with winter triticale, the corn hybrid must be appropriate so that it reaches harvest moisture in a timely manner in September to still enable early triticale seeding.

The potential yield loss from delayed soybean planting is less significant, perhaps about 8%. (OMAFRA Publication 811, Agronomy Guide For Field Crops) When following triticale with sudangrass, there is no yield loss because planting is not delayed.

It is essential to completely kill the triticale or rye with glyphosate or tillage to minimize shading and competition for moisture. In dry years, decreased moisture in the soil profile following forage rye and triticale can have a negative effect on the yield of the following crop. While no-till can conserve moisture, hard, dry soils following triticale can inhibit the root development required for the crop to get moisture, so some tillage is usually required.

How can I increase the yield of annual and perennial forage grasses, and alfalfa?
Proper fertility management is essential for high yielding, high quality forage. We would not think of growing a crop of corn or soybeans without fertilizer, and yet that happens too often with forage crops. Soil testing and knowing how much P and K are available in the soil to start with is critical. Take a representative soil sample, send it to an accredited lab and use the results to determine optimum fertilizer rates. Adjust for manure application. Fertilizer is expensive, so soil testing to target the greatest return to that investment is important.

The removal rates of P and K, and other macronutrients are high. With an alfalfa-grass mixture, a typical amount of P and K removed per tonne of dry matter harvested is equivalent to about 12 – 14 lbs of P205 and 50 – 55 lbs of K2O. As an example, assuming an alfalfa-grass mixed stand with a modest yield of 3.2 tonnes of dry matter per acre per year, forage removes about 43 lbs (20 kg) of P205 and 173 lbs (78 kg) of K2O every year. There is about four times the removal of K2O than P205, so K is often the more limiting soil nutrient. If fertilizer is not applied, soil tests can be dramatically reduced over the life of a stand, with significantly reduced yields. With high costs and tighter availability of land, this makes poor fertility management expensive.

Grasses, including both perennials (orchardgrass, tall fescue, meadow fescue, timothy, etc) and annuals (sudangrass, winter triticale, spring cereals, etc), are very responsive to nitrogen and sulphur. Yield and crude protein increases can be dramatic. As a general rule of thumb, it is suggested to apply about 45 lbs of N for each expected tonne of dry matter yield expected. Sulphur should be applied at a rate of 1 lb S for every 8 – 10 lbs of N. While alfalfa- grass mixtures can supply sufficient N on their own, dramatic improvements in yield and crude protein are seen with the application of about 20 lbs of S using ammonium-sulphate as the source at green-up in the spring.

What can I plant after winter wheat and spring cereals to produce more forage?
Double crop forage option following winter wheat and other spring cereals is a cost effective way to replenish forage inventories. These options most commonly include spring cereals (forage oats, forage spring triticale, barley), and cereal-pea mixtures to produce forage in the fall to feed during the winter. In the fall, they commonly take 55 – 60 days to reach boot-stage. They are very frost and cold tolerant, although they can be difficult to wilt to storage moisture when harvested late-fall. Forage oats and forage oat / pea mixtures have historically provided “big saves” for us in the past during drought years when forage inventories were very tight. The recently introduced spring triticale, AAC Delight, is a high-yielding, reduced-awn (nearly beardless) variety developed for superior silage, palatability and digestibility. Rust on oats during wet falls can sometimes be an issue, reducing quality and palatability, so Delight can be a very good option.

In higher CHU areas when wheat combining and forage planting is early, sudangrass and sudangrass mixtures (NutriMax – sudangrass, Italian ryegrass, red clover, berseem clover) is sometimes an option. Evolution Italian ryegrass is typically planted after wheat, harvested in October, over wintered and harvested again the following May, producing some extremely high
quality forage. Winter triticale is a popular option that does not produce forage in the fall to over winter livestock, but does provide high quality feed the following May.

Summer seeding alfalfa and alfalfa-grass mixtures can be a good way to establish new fields so that full season yields can be harvested the following year. It is typically done after winter wheat or spring cereals are harvested, and also during years when alfalfa winterkill or winter injury necessitates the quick establishment of new stands. Close attention must be paid to timely seeding dates and control of volunteer cereals. The biggest risk of summer seeding forage is lack of moisture after seeding. Do not use companion crops with summer seedings. They compete too strongly for available soil moisture and will reduce stand establishment. Alfalfa needs at least 6 weeks of good growth after germination before a killing frost to develop a crown, build up root reserves, and survive the winter. Although weather and soil condition vary each year (we don’t know when the actual killing frost will occur), this means most alfalfa summer seedings should be done by the end of August in most parts of southern Ontario, slightly later into September in the extreme southwest, and early to mid-August in northern Ontario. Later seedings dates sometimes work, but there is a risk of early killing frost.

Competition from volunteer wheat can be a serious issue with an alfalfa-grass summer seeding. The challenge is getting the wheat harvested, the volunteer wheat to germinate and adequately controlled, and the alfalfa seeded in a timely manner. An early wheat harvest helps by providing more time. A lot of volunteer wheat can result when light grain goes through the combine. A thick, dense stand of wheat (particularly behind the combine swath) will greatly limit the establishment of new forage species, and can result in strips of weeds (the width of the swath, spaced the width of the combine) the following year. One approach to reduce the problem is to do some light tillage to encourage the grain to germinate. Some rainfall is usually necessary to help germination. During a drought, germination of much of the volunteer wheat will be delayed until after the alfalfa-grass is already seeded. A burndown with glyphosate 7 – 10 days after some light tillage, or another light cultivation or two should remove much of the volunteer grain. Of course this takes time, and as the calendar gets later, the option for a timely alfalfa seeding is sometimes lost. Refer to ‘Summer Seeding Alfalfa & Alfalfa-Grass Mixtures”
www.qualityseeds.ca/summer-seeding-alfalfa-alfalfa-grass-mixtures/ .

Take Away Messages For More Forage
•Scout your winter triticale in the early spring to make an assessment on the stand and plant health, especially snow mould.
•Walk your alfalfa fields in the early spring and assess for winterkill and winter injury. Dig up some roots and determine stand health.
•Where pastures are thin, less productive with bare ground showing, consider frost seeding to rejuvenate the stand.
•Consider AAC Delight spring forage triticale as a nurse crop when seeding down alfalfa-grass, or as a mono stand to provide high quality feed in early summer.
•Plant Challenger sudangrass late-May and early-June after either triticale, low yielding alfalfa-grass first cuts, or unseeded acreage to produce high yielding, high forage quality feed.
•Properly fertilize perennial forage stands (especially P and K) to ensure these are not limiting yields. Grass stands respond very highly in both yield and crude protein to nitrogen & sulphur.
•After winter wheat harvest, consider planting cereals and cereal-pea mixtures for extra forage. If attention is paid to seeding date and volunteer wheat control, summer seeding alfalfa-grass can be a good option with no establishment year yield loss the next year.

Quality Seeds Ltd
8400 Huntington Road, Vaughan, ON L4H 4Z6
905-856-7333 ∙ 1-877-856-7333 ∙ support@qualityseeds.ca ∙ www.qualityseeds.ca