Winter feed bills are the part of a cattle operation nobody looks forward to. A free online program on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from 6 to 7 p.m. will look at one way to shave them down — planting cool-season forage brassicas and grazing them instead of hauling hay.
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is hosting the session as art of its 2026 “Ag in the Evening” Zoom lecture series. There’s no charge. To attend, register at tx.ag/RegisterBrassicasForbsWebinar. Login information goes out to participants after they register.
The speaker is Vanessa Corriher-Olson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension forage specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Research Center at Overton and a professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Overton sits in the middle of East Texas cattle country, and the research center there has spent years on the question of how to keep something green in the pasture when the Bermuda goes dormant.
Brassicas are her answer for part of the year.
“Brassicas fit well into forage-based production systems by extending the grazing season into late fall and early spring,” Corriher-Olson said.
What the hour covers
Corriher-Olson will walk through the different members of the forage brassica family — kale, rape and turnips among them — and what each one does in a grazing system. She’ll also cover planting, fertilization, forage quality and grazing management, which is where most producers trying brassicas for the first time run into trouble.
Anyone who can’t make the date has options. Recordings of earlier “Ag in the Evening” sessions are posted on the East Texas Beef and Forage Extension YouTube page.
For more information, contact Corriher-Olson at vacorriher@ag.tamu.edu.
