Warm-season grasses aren’t miracle forages, but they have a rightful seat at the table in Southern hay and grazing systems. Although they tend to be lower quality than their cool-season counterparts, warm-season grasses have growth curves and yield potential that can fill gaps in forage production when other species tend to hit the snooze button.

During the 2026 Master Haymaker program held in Elizabethtown, Ky., earlier this month, Chris Teutsch with the University of Kentucky discussed the benefits of coupling warm-season grasses like bermudagrass, crabgrass, and teffgrass with cool-season grasses in his region of the South, sometimes referred to as the Transition Area of the United States. The extension forage specialist said although warm-season grasses are less digestible and have lower crude protein (CP) than cool-seasons, they are more drought tolerant and water-efficient, and they find their stride when daytime highs reach 90ºF.

“If it’s really hot and you’ve got adequate water and decent fertility, they are going to grow quickly during the summer months,” Teutsch said.

Bermudagrass. Teutsch coined bermudagrass as the timothy of the South. “Bermudagrass becomes a strong contender as a perennial warm-season grass in a hay production system,” he said. “It’s not super high-quality, but it matches what horse owners like in terms of low nonstructural carbohydrates in grass.”

He purported one barrier to more bermudagrass acres is the sprigging process and the equipment necessary for good establishment. That said, seeded bermudagrass varieties are becoming more available on the market. Based on a nine-year study, total-season yields of intensively managed seeded bermudagrass reached 6 to 7.5 tons of dry matter per acre.

“If you’re going to plant bermudagrass and use it, you have to commit to intensive management,” Teutsch said. “If you let it go more than 30 days, the forage quality is going to drop off really hard. You’ve also got to be willing to put some nitrogen and potassium fertilizer on it because you will be removing a lot of nutrients when you’re making 6 to 7 tons of hay off that field.”

Crabgrass. “Is that a weed, or is that a forage crop?” Teutsch asked the audience. In this case, he suggested crabgrass can be a high-value forage crop, but its purpose in hay and pasture systems has historically been a topic of debate. “If you can get past the idea of crabgrass being a weed, it can actually make a very nice, soft hay,” Teutsch said.

Crabgrass is well adapted to the growing conditions of the Mid-South. It is an annual, but it is a prolific reseeder with perennial-like persistence if farmers let it head out at least once per growing season. Crabgrass quality outshines that of bermudagrass, with higher digestibility and average CP up to 14%, and Teutsch contended that crabgrass excels when it comes to grazing animal performance.

According to a study from the Noble Research Institute, stocker cattle gained an average of 1.85 pounds per day on medium-quality crabgrass without any supplement. Stockers on excellent-quality crabgrass gained 2.35 pounds per day on average. Those results were compared to a 1-pound average daily gain from stockers grazing bermudagrass.

Teffgrass. This warm-season species is adapted to various soil conditions. Teutsch said teffgrass quality is comparable to bermudagrass quality and described it as being “tougher” than crabgrass. Teffgrass is a true annual, so it must be reseeded every year. One challenge with teffgrass is that it is susceptible to lodging.

“If we put on too much nitrogen up front — more than 40 to 50 pounds during seeding — it almost always causes lodging,” Teutsch said. “Or, if we don’t get it cut in a timely matter — say it’s wet and we can’t harvest it and it gets too tall — we tend to get lodging in that plant. That’s a real problem because once it lodges, it’s almost impossible to get it off the ground.”

So, where does teffgrass fit?

It’s not likely to perform well in a beef grazing system, Teutsch said, but it is a highly desirable species for horse hay. “If you’re making horse hay and looking for something to grow in the summer months, teffgrass may be a good option,” he affirmed.