In a field, where a forest clear-cut was done six years ago, and the soil is shallow and poor with nutrients, a field experiment was carried out in the spring 2018, in which we tested the production of 3 roughage mixtures of spring cereals and peas for dairy cows: barley and peas, wheat and peas, and triticale and peas was compared to single-crop peas. Direct drilling of seeds was used. We wanted to find the best combination of cereals and peas, according to the ripening period, the total yield and the protein yield. A part of yields were ensiled and ad-hoc tested for palatability on dairy cows. The dry yield of mixtures was higher than the yield of pure pea stand (5.2 to 6.4 t/ha versus 3.8 t/ha). The highest protein yield was achieved with a mixture of barley and peas, 646 kg/ha, followed by a mixture of triticale and peas 599 kg protein/ha, wheat and peas 540 kg/ha and 461 kg/ha with a clean pea stand. The cereals grew well and the pea's share decreased in comparison with cereals from 50 % at seeding to 27 % at harvest in barley and peas, triticale and peas, and only 18 % in a mixture of wheat. Crops could improve with the optimum nutrition with nitrogen. It turned out that the pea growing period was too short to establish a good symbiosis with N2-fixing bacteria and provide sufficient nitrogen for itself and for cereals. The experiment showed a mixture of barley and peas as the best tested option. Analysis showed that the best mixture for silage was triticale and peas. The produced silage from mixtures was palatable by the cows.
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