I first heard about teff (Eragrostis tef) being used as a hay crop in early 2006 at a meeting near the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia. The meeting was about orchardgrass production, so I was speaking about new varieties that are available for producers to grow. Several farmers had experienced massive stand losses of their established orchardgrass hay fields, so they had tried this ‘new’ summer annual grass. Some of the farmers were surprised that I knew about this grass, but I didn’t know about its use as a hay or pasture grass. Teff is the Ethiopian name for a grain crop that supplies the majority of the calories for the diet of the people in Ethiopia (and Erytrea). The straw is used as a fodder for animal feed after the seed is threshed, but this would be of lower forage quality than if the grass were harvested in a vegetative stage of growth
