Cover crop and maybe cash crop

Farmers had a few years of high prices and all good things must come to an end. Wheat has a new nickname, “poverty grass” because prices are so low.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Farmers are searching for alternative crops that may be profitable in 2017.
 
So we decided to throw a hail mary and try a new crop.  This is our fescue grass.  A freshly planted green field in October is a little unusual.

We stumbled upon the idea of fescue grass by accident. We harvested an entire field of sugarbeets in August, and the field was left black. We needed a cover crop on it to make sure it doesn’t blow this winter.
 
The fescue grass is a cover crop that we may be able to harvest next summer and may eventually end up in the seed you buy at the hardware store.  It’s a perennial crop so we may be harvesting this same field for the next 2 or 3 years.
 
We didn’t follow the rules when we planted the crop. Our primary concern was a cover crop and not a profit crop. We spread the seed instead of using an air drill, and the crop was planted later than it should have been.  Right now it’s a good cover crop.  We will need a little luck for the cover crop to turn into a cash crop next spring.
 
There is no guarantee that fescue grass will survive the winter because it was planted so late and so thin.  If it does survive and has a good stand next spring, I'll keep you posted on harvest.