Air August 13, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. Remember the Wheat production meeting on September 3rd. I told you I was going to drive you crazy with this one! The weather continues to be less than ideal. In fact I can't say on the radio what I really think of it right now!

I am starting to get the phone calls from producers who have soybeans that are starting to wilt and turn yellow or white wondering if they should cut them for hay or hold on and wait for rain. This is a real quandry for the soybean producer. Soybeans, as many of you found out last year, can make very high quality hay. The catch comes in the timing. What makes soybean hay so good is the leaves. So you essentially have to swatch the beans while they still have enough leaves to make good quality. If you wait until a majority of the leaves have already turned and they are falling off the plant, you have soybean stubble straw with very little feed value. If, however, you bite the bullet when the stress first starts to show and go ahead and put them down you can end up with hay that has anywhere from 12 to 18% crude protein. But if you wait until the stress is so bad that the leaves are falling off and you wind up with stalks they'll still have crude protein around 10% but the problem will be getting the cattle to eat the stalks. You will probably have to grind them and mix with other hay to encourage consumption. IF you have a need for more hay and your beans are starting to show stress in at least 1/3 of the field AND it doesn't look like serious rain in the forecast then you need to move fast. Get the beans swathed before the leaves start falling. Then you will want to try to bale them just at that time when they are still almost too wet. Get out early in the morning when the dew's on so that you keep as many leaves on as possible. Then you may want to leave the bales out on the edge of the field just in case one starts to smolder or catch on fire. No need to burn up a hay shed. One option, especially with pastures going backwards so fast is to graze the soybeans. You may want to consider throwing some electric fences up to partition the field off so they don't trample so much and get better utilization, but grazing is option that isn't considered very often. Watch the bloat and talk with your vet about using a bloat prevention product. Hopefully it'll rain soon, but if not, have your options ready!

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

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