Look at this stuff. It is like Reed Canarygrass on steroids. In fact you can see it surrounded by RCG, which suddenly looks like Fine Fescue by comparison! I am seeing it here and there in the pastures because it came by seed from some Eastern WA hay I bought last February. I was running out of hay, just needed a few more tons. My local hay guy was out, so he trucked me over some first cutting hay that was pretty seedy. I noticed the milo-like seeds piling up in the barn under the hay troughs; and wondered what potentially monstrous thing I had brought in, and if I would regret it.
I think this is some hybrid variant of sorghum-sudangrass, but it is hella productive and the sheep really like it. I had seen a different version when I was at a KHSI Expo in Tennessee. We had toured a farm there where an NRCS guy had seeded it into his pastures. There, it looked nearly like corn, tall with very wide leaf blades. (Which is a reminder to us that corn is actually a strange species of grass.)
This has been a good summer for Sudangrass, hot and dry. Alas, I’m not sure if it’ll stick around, since it doesn’t like cold. But I won’t mind if it does!
The Collie Farm Blog 
October 21, 2018 at 10:41 pm
Hey, just read, and shared an article (from Oregon State) that quoted you! It was about not killing coyotes to stabilize the population and keep livestock safer. This has nothing to do with grass or anything else, but I was pleased to see your name there!
October 22, 2018 at 4:38 am
That is too funny, I spotted that too! I still believe it’s true: I see coyotes coming and going constantly on our trail cam, and sometimes in person. And occasionally they’ll grab a chicken that’s chosen to fly outside the hotwire at night. But they leave the sheep alone! đŸ™‚
March 19, 2019 at 12:39 am
Aren’t you concerned about Prussic Acid poisoning in your sheep if this is sorgum or sudangrass? especially since you don’t know exactly what type of grass this is? There’s a good article on NMSU website on this. Here’s the link of you want to read. https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_b/B808/welcome.html and here’s another one from Perdue University
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/forages/publications/ay196.htm
I’ve not planted any of this grass because this worries me for the health of my animals. Would love to know your thoughts on this since you seem more excited about it than worried.
March 19, 2019 at 3:34 am
JoAnne, you beat me to it, I had made a mental note to go back and update this post to address that topic. Yes, it can be a concern. But it’s mostly when the grass is very newly growing and/or when it is heat or cold stressed. And it’s usually more of a concern in large stands of it, vs I just have small patches of it here and there. I toured a farm in Tennessee, overseen by an NRCS employee, who was experimenting with much larger stands of it. That is where I first remember seeing in in person and thinking “man, that looks like a corn plant on steroids!” He said he’d been ok so far, just making sure he only grazed it when it was fairly mature and not under weather stress.
A friend of mine works at an Eastern WA test lab, and she told me they get lots of samples in for this grass. A lot of hay farmers are switching to it there, but they test every load, out of an abundance of caution.