# Hay not growing right,hardly at all



## Ragnor (Jul 11, 2012)

My dad and I are real disapopinted in our feild this year, not sure what could cause this for sure. Figured I'd ask about it.

This field has produced top quality hay for over 40 years , this year it flopped, and what is growing is trash.
The field was overseeded with orchard grass, timothy and purple clover in the late 1960's.

These first three pics represent what we normally can expect to grow in the field top quality grass hay 4-6 feet in height by early july
This pictures are of areas not cut last year.
























Now these next pictures are the main field as it is today, some grass we dont recognize, no clover, no timothy, no orchard grass.
lots of dandelion and that dang field daisies, wich we never used to have! This stuff is only 24-30 inches tall!

























Now we are in western washington, it rained real heavy all spring and then got hot, there was a couple weeks of oddly warm weather very early in the spring before the rain.
The fruit trees are all bearing bumper crops this year, but our field sucks.

The guy that cuts our hay was real late last year, well after prime harvest time. Wich is usually about now. Don't think he got here till august last year.
for the last three years there has been rust in our field, we had never seen that before three years ago, that's since about 1940.
We used to do our own hay up untill about 10 or 15 years ago and had a real nice field. Since we started letting another guy cut it we have seen an increase in weeds bieng dragged into our field from the other lower grade fields in the area. Real disapointing but I guess that's how it goes.

So anyway, anyone got any real good ideas on what is going on here?
I am planning on fencing about half the field and start running cattle on it, but still we still want to figure out why our field went down hill so fast.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

*Frost damage?*

*No cover and frost hurt it.*

*HERE,We had a late frost this spring and it hurt some grass and alfalfa.It actually had to start over from crowns.*


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## Ragnor (Jul 11, 2012)

We did have a hard freeze 4 nights in a row just after the warm spell, 24-29 degrees, it even killed some nettles, perhaps that's it. Thanks


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Believe swmnhay's theory is valid....I think it would be a good idea to check your soil PH, maybe fertilize some, and spray for broadleaf weeds for two consecutive years at least. That will turn your field around to like it was in the "old days".

Regards, Mike


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Do you only cut once a year? Our orchard and brome grass looks like your past years cuttings, but only if we fertilize and get enough moisture on it. Do you fertilize? What you have this year looks like what swmnhay said about frost and maybe no fertilizer. What you have this year looks like what our orchard looked like this year where we didn't get enough irrigation and didn't fertilize due to possible lack of water. Or possibly you do fertilize it and your extra moisture caused the fertilizer to leach down into the soil below where the grass roots could reach it?


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## OneManShow (Mar 17, 2009)

We are not too far from you. This year, our yields are down 30-40%. We had the 2nd wettest spring on record (2010 is number one not a good hay year either). I think our low yield is a result of two things: First we didn't get fertilizer down until the last week of April because of rain, and second, I believe our soil temperature remained low through most of the spring-and the combination of the two, late fertilizer and cool ground impacted our yield in a very negative fashion. You are further north than we are so your soils would warm later than ours. We had frost on the windshield in May too. Your yield was probably affected by the cool spring as well.


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