# organic hay producer



## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

I am a new member here. I am also a new hay producer in northern illinois. I had an opportunity to lease 215 acres of certified organic ground. I decided to go for it. The whole farm is first year alfalfa with a little grass here and there. I'm going into my third cutting now, whenever weather permits. I have lots of questions but a big one I have is whether anyone on here deals with organic alfalfa fertility. I just had a semi load of sulfate of potash delivered and its over twice the cost of conventional potash. The farm is highly productive soils and I estimate I will be yielding between 5.5 and 7 ton depending on a 4th cutting. I'm thinking i'm going to need to source quite a bit of organic fertilizer in the near future. p.s. The landowner requires that the farm keeps its organic certification. I'm a young farmer 29, trying to take advantage of this opportunity and hopefully expand my currently small operation. Thanks for any suggestions.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Any chicken or turkey barns nearby to buy litter off of?


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

yeah there's a pretty good sized turkey farm about 5 miles away


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

n.illinois hayman said:


> yeah there's a pretty good sized turkey farm about 5 miles away


Does the turkey litter have to be from organic turkeys in order for the ground to keep their certification if you would use that?


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

manure doesn't have to be from an organic operation, but if the manure is treated with anything its has to be ok'd by the certifying agency or you could get yourself in hot water with them


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

The bedding or sawdust can't be from recycled wood like ground pallets. It also can't have been treated.


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## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

We also produce organic alfalfa/grass hay and use wood ash as our source of potash. Sulphate of potash is around 51% soluble potash while wood ash is around 10%. The wood ash here is around $24/ton delivered while sulphate of potash is much more. However, one ton of wood ash is equal to two tons of lime for adjusting Ph so that may also limit its suitability for your soils.


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

Fossil02818 said:


> We also produce organic alfalfa/grass hay and use wood ash as our source of potash. Sulphate of potash is around 51% soluble potash while wood ash is around 10%. The wood ash here is around $24/ton delivered while sulphate of potash is much more. However, one ton of wood ash is equal to two tons of lime for adjusting Ph so that may also limit its suitability for your soils.


Thanks for the info


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

All the 'organic' stuff seems like phoooey to me. been selling hay for years and never a request for organic hay. It goes in green and comes out brown, thats good enough for most folks.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Not really the guys choice if he wants to farm the ground. I see organic hay advertised here. To me that means they don't spray for weeds or fertilize. So it ends up being weedy hay that doesn't make much.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Fossil02818 said:


> We also produce organic alfalfa/grass hay and use wood ash as our source of potash. Sulphate of potash is around 51% soluble potash while wood ash is around 10%. The wood ash here is around $24/ton delivered while sulphate of potash is much more. However, one ton of wood ash is equal to two tons of lime for adjusting Ph so that may also limit its suitability for your soils.


Here on our soils you can also only use so much poultry litter of any kind before the calcium levels get out of whack. A few guys that still mess with it around here might use it one year for corn, plant beans, use it again the third year for corn, plant beans then the fifth year are using commercial fertilizers because the calcium levels got too high.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Teslan said:


> Not really the guys choice if he wants to farm the ground. I see organic hay advertised here. To me that means they don't spray for weeds or fertilize. So it ends up being weedy hay that doesn't make much.


If it's done right it works. Guy in the county south of us doesn't do it right. Took a steer in a few days ago to be processed. Passed the organic guys place, corn was full of giant ragweeds, corn was yellow but the ragweeds looked nice and healthy. Last time he had beans there I thought it was fallow, was just about at a full stop before I seen some anemic looking bean plants along the edge of the field. Foxtail took that over before harvest and nobody could cut it, late fall with no frost and the grass was just as green as could be.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Teslan said:


> Not really the guys choice if he wants to farm the ground. I see organic hay advertised here. To me that means they don't spray for weeds or fertilize. So it ends up being weedy hay that doesn't make much.


Obviously they aren't spraying but hopefully they're really piling on the manure. Best thing you can do for weeds in organic hay is mow it. Often. 
Neighbor farms maybe 200 acres of organic grass/alfalfa mixes and it's pretty nice. He's using probably 5T of litter per acre per year and getting impressive yields. The hay is nice enough that a lot of it is worth trucking from PA to farms in Michigan and Indiana.


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## weatherman (Dec 5, 2008)

ARD Farm said:


> All the 'organic' stuff seems like phoooey to me. been selling hay for years and never a request for organic hay. It goes in green and comes out brown, thats good enough for most folks.





Teslan said:


> Not really the guys choice if he wants to farm the ground. I see organic hay advertised here. To me that means they don't spray for weeds or fertilize. So it ends up being weedy hay that doesn't make much.


It's only "phoooey" if there is not a market. I think he has an uphill marketing battle trying to move 215 acres of organic hay. Neighbor leases his 100 acre farm land so farmer can grow organic popcorn. Field is weedy as hell. My first reply to neighbor what happens to the weed seed when the wind kicks up. His field is on the west side of my alfalfa field. Wife sees organic on a product in the grocery store it ends up in the basket. Drives me crazy. There is a market for organic products not sure if I need so much of it in my kitchen cupboards let alone my barn.


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## weatherman (Dec 5, 2008)

Haying a 215 acre alfalfa field what organic hay perservative is available?


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Don't try it down here......


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

weatherman said:


> It's only "phoooey" if there is not a market. I think he has an uphill marketing battle trying to move 215 acres of organic hay. Neighbor leases his 100 acre farm land so farmer can grow organic popcorn. Field is weedy as hell. My first reply to neighbor what happens to the weed seed when the wind kicks up. His field is on the west side of my alfalfa field. Wife sees organic on a product in the grocery store it ends up in the basket. Drives me crazy. There is a market for organic products not sure if I need so much of it in my kitchen cupboards let alone my barn.


About 8 years ago we had a guy renting 160 acres of ours. Last year of the lease. He decided to raise organic corn for silage. There were weeds in it as tall as the corn. I bet 1/4 of the silage tonnage was weeds. If he had only cultivated the corn even one time it would have been a lot better. He was proud of himself because he was getting quite a bit of money from an organic dairy for it. We opted to not renew his lease because of all the weeds and crashing the pivot twice. The next year the guy we leased to planted alfalfa. This was before RR alfalfa. Guess what came up as thick as the alfalfa and oats? It's a nice grass hay field now, but in 2016 I'm possibly going to tear up the grass to plant alfalfa. Thank goodness there is RR alfalfa now.


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

Well there is a market for the organic hay. Believe it or not, there are not very many weeds in this field going into 3rd cutting. 1st cutting was very tough, ragweeds were very thick and made mowing quite difficult with the JD Haybine. I knew that was going to be the case when I started tho. I cut a little higher than I should have I learned and going into second cutting there were some weeds that put a new shoot off of the stump. They weren't near as bad as first cutting but still causing some issues with slugs here and there where they were thick. I mowed as low as I could with the mower on 2nd cutting and took out virtually all of the ragweeds. There are some lambsquarters that seem to hang around but they aren't competing with the alfalfa very successfully. They are short and aren't putting any seed heads on so I'm not too worried about them. There are some pigweeds that are being persistant in the field but they are no taller than the alfalfa, and will be mowed before they go to seed. Dairy quality organic alfalfa is in high demand. Wisconsin and Indiana are both big markets for organic hay. I was disappointed with my test results from 2nd cutting. I had a lot of hay that I thought would make dairy quality and the tests all came back around 140 RFV give or take a few points with 20.5% protein on average. The dairy I've been moving a lot of hay too requires 160 or higher to feed to milking cows. Luckily for me they have enough dry cows that they have been buying the 140RFV hay to feed to them. There is a 35 acre parcel of this farm that has too much grass in it to ever make dairy quality hay. The alfalfa has been there a year now so reseeding is not going to work. I'm thinking I'll load it up on manure this fall and moldboard it and go to corn for a year. I certainly don't want to be in a position at any time where I have to rotate the whole farm out of hay. That thought scares the hell out of me. But I would like to start rotating smaller pieces of the farm to corn every year and then reseed back to alfalfa. I'm not sure whats out there for organic preservatives. I'm currently using nothing. Both Hesston big square balers are set up with auto application systems for applying acid. Not sure if there's anything I could run through those systems that would stay in the organic rules. I know its been tough to try and get hay under 15% with the humidity being the way its been. My windows for baling have been only 3 or 4 hours at a time when the humidity gets down to the mid 50's low 60s.


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

hope this video works, mowing first cutting in one of the cleaner fields


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

n.illinois hayman said:


> Well there is a market for the organic hay. Believe it or not, there are not very many weeds in this field going into 3rd cutting. 1st cutting was very tough, ragweeds were very thick and made mowing quite difficult with the JD Haybine. I knew that was going to be the case when I started tho. I cut a little higher than I should have I learned and going into second cutting there were some weeds that put a new shoot off of the stump. They weren't near as bad as first cutting but still causing some issues with slugs here and there where they were thick. I mowed as low as I could with the mower on 2nd cutting and took out virtually all of the ragweeds. There are some lambsquarters that seem to hang around but they aren't competing with the alfalfa very successfully. They are short and aren't putting any seed heads on so I'm not too worried about them. There are some pigweeds that are being persistant in the field but they are no taller than the alfalfa, and will be mowed before they go to seed. Dairy quality organic alfalfa is in high demand. Wisconsin and Indiana are both big markets for organic hay. I was disappointed with my test results from 2nd cutting. I had a lot of hay that I thought would make dairy quality and the tests all came back around 140 RFV give or take a few points with 20.5% protein on average. The dairy I've been moving a lot of hay too requires 160 or higher to feed to milking cows. Luckily for me they have enough dry cows that they have been buying the 140RFV hay to feed to them. There is a 35 acre parcel of this farm that has too much grass in it to ever make dairy quality hay. The alfalfa has been there a year now so reseeding is not going to work. I'm thinking I'll load it up on manure this fall and moldboard it and go to corn for a year. I certainly don't want to be in a position at any time where I have to rotate the whole farm out of hay. That thought scares the hell out of me. But I would like to start rotating smaller pieces of the farm to corn every year and then reseed back to alfalfa. I'm not sure whats out there for organic preservatives. I'm currently using nothing. Both Hesston big square balers are set up with auto application systems for applying acid. Not sure if there's anything I could run through those systems that would stay in the organic rules. I know its been tough to try and get hay under 15% with the humidity being the way its been. My windows for baling have been only 3 or 4 hours at a time when the humidity gets down to the mid 50's low 60s.


What do you do about insects in organic hay? I had heard that you are allowed to spray for insects if they get really bad. I'm not sure how one would raise alfalfa here without having to spray at least once for weevils.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I have a buddy that's an organic dairy, usually buys his organic hay in the summer for less than I sell my nasty ole chemical ridden regular hay for in the winter, but then they turn around and ding him $60-80 a ton for delivery, believe it's coming out of Wisconsin last I heard.

I believe you can use bacterial preservatives on organic hay.

When the buddy first got certified organic him and his wife pestered me to no end to get at least get my hay fields organic so I could keep selling to him. Even offered to pay our way on a trip to Wisconsin to a seminar on raising organic alfalfa. I passed on the whole deal, still sell him hay anyways as the bulls can eat regular hay as well as all the calves up to six months before they freshen the first time.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Teslan said:


> What do you do about insects in organic hay? I had heard that you are allowed to spray for insects if they get really bad. I'm not sure how one would raise alfalfa here without having to spray at least once for weevils.


Neem oil is one solution. Also insecticidal soaps are available.

I actually use neem oil quite a bit on the fruit trees and berry bushes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neem_oil


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

All our hay is organic, not certified though. I'd say 50% of the suppliers of small squares are organic here. I will soon have to depart ways with organic though as I have a bedstraw infestation that I'm not willing to spend money on diesel to try to beat back plowing and reseeding every 3 years.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Teslan said:


> What do you do about insects in organic hay? I had heard that you are allowed to spray for insects if they get really bad. I'm not sure how one would raise alfalfa here without having to spray at least once for weevils.


You mix it with grass and don't spray it.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

8350HiTech said:


> You mix it with grass and don't spray it.


Then there is no point to even try with the alfalfa because it will be dead in a year or so if you mix it.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Teslan said:


> Then there is no point to even try with the alfalfa because it will be dead in a year or so if you mix it.


Maybe in your area. No such occurrence anywhere near here.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

8350HiTech said:


> Maybe in your area. No such occurrence anywhere near here.


I meant mix alfalfa and grass without spraying for bugs. Personally I don't like mix hay for baling quality hay. Hard to get the perfect balance of moisture to save the leaves on the alfalfa, but yet not be to moist for the grass. That said I am going to drill in some grass into an old alfalfa stand next spring. But it won't be organic so it will most likely be sprayed for weevils and aphids.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

I got you. But nobody with 50/50 alf/orch sprays for bugs here.

Nobody is too strong. Let's say it's a rarity. But anything in the rarity category you just figure on skipping if going organic.


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

I think there is some mixture of fish guts and citric acid or something like that. Luckily there has been very low insect pressure this season


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## weatherman (Dec 5, 2008)

n. illinois hayman sounds like you have a great crop going for you. My ignorance shows a little bit when it comes to organic hay. Of all the ads I see (CL, farm paper, etc) very few are organic hay ads. Maybe this will be a new niche. Do you use hay perservative?


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

I'm glad I don't drink milk. Lactose intolerant.


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

mlappin said:


> I have a buddy that's an organic dairy, usually buys his organic hay in the summer for less than I sell my nasty ole chemical ridden regular hay for in the winter, but then they turn around and ding him $60-80 a ton for delivery, believe it's coming out of Wisconsin last I heard.
> 
> I believe you can use bacterial preservatives on organic hay.
> 
> When the buddy first got certified organic him and his wife pestered me to no end to get at least get my hay fields organic so I could keep selling to him. Even offered to pay our way on a trip to Wisconsin to a seminar on raising organic alfalfa. I passed on the whole deal, still sell him hay anyways as the bulls can eat regular hay as well as all the calves up to six months before they freshen the first time.


I'll stick with the nasty stuff too. It sells just fine. Afterall, it's just a hobby but it has to make moneI have a friend who farms organic down in Ohio by Sandusky (he raises organic beef). Some years back he ran out of forage and was feeding the steers produce. Cukes and zuchini make for an interesting back end exit on a steer.............very interesting.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

If the entire world turned to organic farming tomorrow, a couple of billion people would starve to death in a year's time. Without chemical fertilizers, weed killers, insecticides and herbicides, there would be mass famine. Do you really think they want to protect the environment or just thin the population and destroy property rights?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

ARD Farm said:


> I'll stick with the nasty stuff too. It sells just fine. Afterall, it's just a hobby but it has to make moneI have a friend who farms organic down in Ohio by Sandusky (he raises organic beef). Some years back he ran out of forage and was feeding the steers produce. Cukes and zuchini make for an interesting back end exit on a steer.............very interesting.


HAHA, kinda like letting the cows out for the first time in the spring on grass. DON"T walk behind them, ten paces off to one side is a better ideal.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Hugh said:


> If the entire world turned to organic farming tomorrow, a couple of billion people would starve to death in a year's time. Without chemical fertilizers, weed killers, insecticides and herbicides, there would be mass famine. Do you really think they want to protect the environment or just thin the population and destroy property rights?


Silly, of course it's just the environment, and gobs and gobs of money....that's why they call it going "Green".


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

Hugh said:


> If the entire world turned to organic farming tomorrow, a couple of billion people would starve to death in a year's time. Without chemical fertilizers, weed killers, insecticides and herbicides, there would be mass famine. Do you really think they want to protect the environment or just thin the population and destroy property rights?


I remember having that same attitude .


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Is the organic hay being raised for organic meat or is it because of the land requirements?

Regards, Mike


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Vol said:


> Is the organic hay being raised for organic meat or is it because of the land requirements?
> 
> Regards, Mike


I think he said the land owners wanted it to stay certified organic.


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

Vol said:


> Is the organic hay being raised for organic meat or is it because of the land requirements?
> 
> Regards, Mike


The land owner is a big supporter of organics. Understands the many challenges of farming organically and doesn't charge astronomical rent like all the other prime ground in the area.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

n.illinois hayman said:


> The land owner is a big supporter of organics. Understands the many challenges of farming organically and doesn't charge astronomical rent like all the other prime ground in the area.


I don't get it I guess....less rent for a more challenging endeavor? So if everyone around your organic ground can afford to pay astronomical prices on rent and astronomical prices on inputs it must mean that they have astronomical yields comparatively speaking.....so then why would your attitude be different about the endeavor now vs. when "you used to think like that" ..... Just curious, doesn't make much sense to me, still have to burn fossil fuels.....or are we working with animals?....all for WAY less yield, have to apply and burn them same fossil fuels to spread fish guts....I just don't get it......
However, I did hire a guy the other day that drives a Prius......not sure he's gonna be a lot of help moving equipment....but a good kid all the same, knows nothing about tractors...he'll learn, maybe...


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## n.illinois hayman (Aug 21, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> I don't get it I guess....less rent for a more challenging endeavor? So if everyone around your organic ground can afford to pay astronomical prices on rent and astronomical prices on inputs it must mean that they have astronomical yields comparatively speaking.....so then why would your attitude be different about the endeavor now vs. when "you used to think like that" ..... Just curious, doesn't make much sense to me, still have to burn fossil fuels.....or are we working with animals?....all for WAY less yield, have to apply and burn them same fossil fuels to spread fish guts....I just don't get it......
> However, I did hire a guy the other day that drives a Prius......not sure he's gonna be a lot of help moving equipment....but a good kid all the same, knows nothing about tractors...he'll learn, maybe...


Not sure what you don't understand about the rent being lower than conventional ground. I've got to put much more time and energy and thought into every acre, along with more expensive inputs. It's a bit of a trade off between the producer and land owner. Land owner can't charge $300-400 acre rent and expect to have a tenant there willing to deal with the challenges associated with organics. With hay I can yield just as much as conventional and get a better price. With corn and soybeans there certainly is some loss in yield I believe from not having superior genetics in your seed. However, 40 bu soybeans at $26 bushel and 140 or 150 bushel corn at $11-12 bushel pencils pretty good for me. My attitude is different now mainly because I'm much more educated on the economics of organic production. I used to drive by and see a weedy organic field and just roll my eyes or laugh or whatever. I didn't realize it was just poor management. I intend to have organic crops that the average person driving by would have no idea it wasn't conventional. I see it as a challenge and a way to better my own agronomy skills


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

n.illinois hayman said:


> Not sure what you don't understand about the rent being lower than conventional ground. I've got to put much more time and energy and thought into every acre, along with more expensive inputs. It's a bit of a trade off between the producer and land owner. Land owner can't charge $300-400 acre rent and expect to have a tenant there willing to deal with the challenges associated with organics. With hay I can yield just as much as conventional and get a better price. With corn and soybeans there certainly is some loss in yield I believe from not having superior genetics in your seed. However, 40 bu soybeans at $26 bushel and 140 or 150 bushel corn at $11-12 bushel pencils pretty good for me. My attitude is different now mainly because I'm much more educated on the economics of organic production. I used to drive by and see a weedy organic field and just roll my eyes or laugh or whatever. I didn't realize it was just poor management. I intend to have organic crops that the average person driving by would have no idea it wasn't conventional. I see it as a challenge and a way to better my own agronomy skills


No doubt, I've seen some very productive organic ground and was practically weed free. We try not to use any more pesticides or herbicides than absolutely required. Been finding if you get a good stand of rye for a cover crop it drastically reduces weed presence in the spring, even more so than a good stand of wheat.

Here this year with all the rain, relying strictly on 3-4 passes with a cultivator or a weed burner would have been an abysmal failure at best, was hard enough to find a window just to spray and every body around here has at least a few weedy spots. Seed for one, weed for seven. That and on a lot of our HEL fields a pass with a cultivator equals erosion with the first big rain.

Buddy's organic dairy seems to do pretty well for itself, I do think he needs to sharpen his pencil a wee bit more, lost 110 acres of pasture due to somebody else renting it out from under him. Asked him if he ever run the numbers on what hay would cost to replace the 110 acres of grass he lost, said he never looked at it that way. He also passed a chance to buy it as well for the same reason, and this was after he had all the water lines and fences ran. He's seriously considering going back to conventional now, hay doesn't cost him anymore than what I sell in the winter, but the trucking is killing him and he's tired of the paperwork and other annoyances with getting re-certified every year, his words not mine.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

If you say so.....up in your neck, the ground Is much more fertile.....guess we would definitely starve down here......

I've got enough challenges in my life, but good for you, I hope it works out.....I'm just one of the ignorant ones


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