Air June 1, 2005

Thank you Jerry, and good morning everyone. I hate to keep going back to the weather, but geez I wish it would make up it's mind. First 90s, then 60's, maybe it'll rain, maybe it won't. What's normal, forget it, no one really knows - I can tell you what long term averages are, but don't ask my what's normal!

Let's talk about bromegrass hay today. Sure, it may not be much of a crop this year, but that means it becomes even more important to get it cut timely. I have seen entirely too many people wait too darn long to cut their bromegrass just to try to get a few more pounds. Unfortunately, even a couple days delay can cost you a lot of quality in the brome hay. I have had an individual who buys a lot of brome hay bringing in a lot of samples lately for analysis. The bottom line is that most of the samples are coming back much lower in protein than anyone is expecting. If you talk with most producers who put up brome hay, they'll tell you that they are cutting it early and it'll be about 12% protein. If you go to the NRC and look at the table values for protein in brome hay, mid bloom comes in at 14% and late bloom at 10%. The problem is that people are actually cutting the bromegrass later than they think. Mature bromegrass hay has a book value of 6% protein. That's pretty low if you consider that forages have to be at least 5% protein for the cattle to get any good out of it. So 6% is just barely usable! Well, I wish I could tell that I'm getting a lot of the samples back at 12%, but to be right honest, I'd be happy to get samples back that were over 10%! The truth is that the last several samples I sent in have all been under 10%, most of them in that 8 to 9% range. A few years back we did a bunch of forage sampling and the average for over a dozen brome hay samples in a four county area was 7.4%. Only one was above 12%, and only one other was about 9%. The bottom line is that we are putting up our brome hay too late and we don't even know it. I'm convinced that too many people are waiting a day or two to get a few more pounds and that few days is costing them a lot of protein. Once you see those heads start to show, get out there and cut. You aren't going to gain enough in total quantity to make up for the loss in protein, so don't wait - go make some decent hay!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2005.

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