Putting certain land into hay and pasture production may be doing this land a big favor. Here's why:
Presently, an estimated 10 million of the 24 million acres of cropland in Illinois suffer from excessive soil loss. There are several ways to solve the erosion problem on these acres, but one of the most effective strategies is to switch from continuous row crops to a rotation that includes a forage crop.
In fact, on 900,000 of those 10 million acres, a switch to permanent cover is essential for adequate erosion-control.
An additional but less-publicized advantage of putting some land into hay and pasture production is the benefit that doing so provides to wildlife populations throughout Illinois.
Studies made by the Illinois Natural History Survey indicate that as new farming practices in the 1960s reduced the amount of pasture habitat, prairie species of songbirds declined by as much as 50 percent per decade. For example, the Grasshopper Sparrow declined by 96 percent in just 20 years; the Meadowlark, by 84 percent; and the Bobolink, by 97 percent.
Returning erosive land to hay or pasture not only should revitalize these populations, but it may increase a farmer's net income in the process- assuming that a good market for the crop can be found. The most consistently profitable uses for forage crops have been for hay and grazing by beef and dairy herds; but there also are more specialized markets, such as high-quality hay for race horses.
For those who intend to reap these benefits by making the shift from row crops to forages, the first step is to examine the available grass and legume species.