Air May 27, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. Last week may have been one of the wettest weeks we've seen in quite some time. Probably a blessing for everyone unless you had hay down!

Which brings us to the topic of the day - making hay! It doesn't seem to matter what the forecast is - it won't rain until you have hay down. So then the question becomes as to whether you wait to cut until the rain is over, or cut it and let it get rained on. Maybe the first question you ahve to ask yourself is what kind of hay do you have and what are you going to do with it. Is it alfalfa, brome or prairie hay? Is it going to be hay for the cowherd, hay for horses, mulch hay or premium dairy quality hay? If you are after mulch hay or bedding hay, it doesn't really matter what you do - you just want tonnage so you wait until tonnage is maxed out and you cut it. But most hay producers that I talk with are interested in producing something with a bit of a quality factor and there in lies the problem. As a hay crop grows, pounds per acres steadily increases and protein decreases. If you want really high quality alfalfa, everyone knows that you cut it before you see a single bloom. Sure, you don't get as many pounds per acre, but you get some very high quality hay. So most producers try to find a balance between protein and tonnage. You sacrifice a little quality to get a few more pounds per acre. But what happens when the alfalfa is ready to cut and there's rain in the forecast? In the southeastern US they face this problem more often than we do. What was found in Kentucky was that if you could delay cutting no more than three days it was better to wait. But if the delay looked like it might be longer than three days, you were probably going to lose more quality letting it stand than putting it down and letting it rain on it. Not an easy formula to be sure. The other thing to consider right now is bromegrass. We normally cut brome wants it starts to bloom. I say that is too late because by the time you start to notice that it's blooming and then you finally getting around to cutting you are way past prime and you have lost a lot of quality. Once the brome is well headed out, cut it. Which means then you'll have to decide whether to cut brome hay, or get back to planting. Always decisions!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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