Hay report after hay report from many parts of the country (sans Southern California) bemoans the impact that massive amounts and/or frequency of rain has had on trying to harvest high-quality
Rainy weather from mid-May to mid-June and with forecasts of above 100° temperatures over the next 10 days, supplies of premium and supreme alfalfa hay are well below normal in the West
Often the most memorable parts of a family vacation are the ones that weren't a component of the original itinerary. A similar scenario occurred recently on a Hay & Forage Grower editorial trip
By Glenn Shewmaker Extension Forage Specialist University of Idaho May stocks of hay are up in Idaho, but the untold story is that much of it is junk hay. We had dry weather up until it was tim
Most reporters to USDA noted light volumes as new crop alfalfa was being harvested in much of the country. Often there were not tests on all quality levels. Some locations mentioned that demand was st
The April year-to-year price received for all hay types declined by $15 per ton across the 27 reporting states in USDA's Agricultural Prices report released May 28. This was not surprising
After dry conditions in the West during the first few months of 2015, things changed in May. Some areas received record rainfall, which helped bring needed moisture but brought in an unstable weather pattern
Frequent rains kept Streater, Ill., hay grower Ron Tombaugh from getting first-cut harvested as early as he would have liked. Tombaugh raises nearly 300 acres of alfalfa in north central Illinois
Average feeding rates of dry alfalfa hay declined in California during 2014 as the average cost of hay pushed over $300 per ton. This trend was documented in the California Cost of Production Annual 2014,
Mike Rankin here . . . and for the past nearly 27 years, I was the crops and soils agent with the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Fond du Lac County. Previous to attending graduate school at Iowa
Alfalfa hay buyers and sellers now have a way to know the relative feed value (RFV) of every bale. A new on-baler system calculates and records RFV as each bale is made, and can assign that value by attaching
When output doesn’t match between machines, hay harvest efficiency goes down the tubes. The author is an associate editor for Hoard’s Dairyman and an animal science graduate of Corn
Your hay storage needs to balance storage cost and forage loss.Given the value of hay today, the economic loss from large round bales stored outside, without cover, on the ground can be excessive. Thi
At on time, we cut hay and laid it in a wide swath for drying behind the cutter bar. When conditioners became commonplace, many growers came to think that a wide swath was no longer important when mak
Many bales of expensive hay in big stacks is a recipe for financial disaster that is present to some degree on every dairy in the West. But it is a risk that doesn’t have to exist, says University
Wide windrows are routinely recommended for hay silage, but a drive through farm country during forage harvest season still finds many narrow windrows. Narrow windrows represent “Goldilocks management”
Farmers and landowners can get help identifying the price of hay, and/or negotiate the sale or purchase of standing hay through a new smartphone app that can quickly find hay price information
A lot of time,money and labor are invested in the production of a hay crop. Though mostfarmers feel a sense of relief once the last bale is ejected from the baler,there is unfortunately still plenty o
