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Frosted forage crop concerns

Some forages can become toxic to animals following a hard freeze.

University of Minnesota Extension crops educator Jared Goplen tells Brownfield sorghum species are the most susceptible.

“So forage sorghum, grain sorghum, sorghum sudangrass, and sudangrasses are really the main crops that people are going to need to be concerned with.”

If grazing or harvesting those species shortly after a frost event, he says prussic acid poisoning can occur.

“It’s always a concern, but with that hard freeze it ends up rupturing or breaking the cells of those plants with that frost and it tends to release more of that prussic acid.”

Goplen says the risk of poisoning usually dissipates within one to two weeks of the freeze.

He says most frosted forage crops, like alfalfa, clovers, peas, small grains, and common pasture grasses, are probably safe.