# Selling Teff Hay



## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

I bought enough Teff to plant 30 acres with a few weeks ago and have since picked up another 25 acre field that would be a good candidate for teff. My question for you guys growing and selling teff is how hard is it to sell. I have never seen teff for sale around here and feel like I will be having to establish a market for it. Thanks


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I put an ad on Craigslist including a link to teff grass.com to explain what it was and I could have sold way more then I had. More people knew what it was then I thought. However I don't think you can charge more for it then traditional grass hay.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

That was my plan, good Bermuda brings $8 and decent mix seems to run $5-6. How much where you able to get out of it?


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## Waterway64 (Dec 2, 2011)

I felt I was educating potential buyers last year. Those who purchased it liked it. My price reieved wasn't to much more than good oat or barley hay would have been. It doesn't compete with good orchard grass alfalfa hay. One thing that really impressed me with teff was how well it suppressed weeds. The fields are still clean this spring. Mel


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Also get a feed test on it to show buyers


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## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

Same here I could have sold 3times what I had. I had a lady get down right mad at me when I told her I was not growing it this year.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

yarnammurt said:


> Same here I could have sold 3times what I had. I had a lady get down right mad at me when I told her I was not growing it this year.


Why did you decide not to raise it anymore?


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## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

I went with alfalfa. Being in Arkansas I think I can do better with alfalfa.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

That's what I am working towards here as well, the market for Bermuda has just been flooded here. What was the Teff bringing in your area?


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

With the FSA paying to sprig fields, it's probably gonna get worse.....


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

somedevildawg said:


> With the FSA paying to sprig fields, it's probably gonna get worse.....


Between that, all these hobby farmers and all the cow pasture being baled the hay market is very poor here.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

This will be my second year not raising teff. It's just so hard to get used to its drying that alfalfa is better. Next year I'm 80% sure I will plant 70 acres. I have a better rake now.


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## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

I was getting $6 bale for the teff. I had no problem getting it dry, or selling it. There is a very good square hay market here. Everyone have a horse, goats, milk cow, etc. My mixed hay is $4 bale, but I always got it tested. It stayed around 12% protein. With the milk goats and the family milk cow I think I will make a better profit with the alfalfa. I don't think alfalfa is grown with in 300+ miles of me, and everyone wants it. You are looking at $14 a bale at the feed stores. I am 35 miles from the horse track in Hot Springs, and really working on that market. I also have 4 big meat goat operations pretty close, and they feed a lot of alfalfa and very little to no grain.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I got $100 a bale for an $800lb bale. It would be about $80 right now.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

I figure the first year I'll be lucky to get $6-7 a bale. We'll see how it goes and how many tons an acre I can make. Gonna go ahead and order more seed and try to get 50 or so acres in.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

I went slow my first year on teff and was glad I did-quite a learning curve with the drying etc. Doing 14 ac this year and have it all committed already at 7 a bale. I am not sure it pencils out as well as orchard grass or orchard-brome mix due to the tillage and seeding costs but it is great as a part of your system, the customers love its fine texture and low sugar for founder prone horses. Five of my main customers top performance horses are on teff exclusively now. And as pointed out by Waterway, if you get your field clean going into seeding and you get a shower on the seedbed at planting, the stuff jumps out of the ground so fast weeds don't have a chance. I had zero horse nettle in my teff fields.

So, it makes a wonderful transition to set up a new field with OG or Timothy. Get your fertilizer and lime well worked in, seed teff, harvest 3 times and no till your OG or timothy in a weed free stubble. What's not to like? Also experimenting with dedicated teff ground and see how that goes. At least the repetitive tillage gets easier. So many rocks here-limestone soils.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Would you have to do any tillage if you plant teff two years in a row?


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

Hayman1 you were talking about no tilling OG in teff stubble. Do you burn it down with glysphate first?


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## ozarkian (Dec 11, 2010)

We have been growing it for several years. getting the buyers educated, even with tests results was a real challenge. Being an annual crop, makes it more expensive to grow than alfalfa over the life of a good alfalfa field. The best years we had were in drought years. It seems to love the heat.


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## BPatrick (Aug 30, 2013)

Nate926, around here I would definitely burn it down with glyphosate. The teff is so aggressive that I would be afraid it would choke the orchard/Timothy out. It grows extremely fast after cutting. The other option would be to cut it as short as possible on the last cutting, that can slow its recovery significantly.


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

Thanks BPatrick!


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

sorry Nate, been off line for several days. I did burn it down as I wanted to make sure that any winter annuals getting their start were not competing with the new stand of hay. That said, I am about to give up on timothy here as I just can not win the battle with speedwell. the only thing that gets it gets timothy as well-something like Chapparelle. But planting in the stubble is perfect. You can get your lime and fertilizer well incorporated when you till for teff, get good weed control going in, fill in and over seed any ruts or rills formed while the teff is germinating and you have a smooth field to work with. The teff stubble is good erosion control while your cool season grasses are germinating. one thing that I considered was that I wanted to plant my OG by Sept 15 which would be a full month or so before teff would die on its own from frost. I did not want the teff pulling moisture from the ground that was needed by the OG to germinate.

Teslan-I just tilled my teff field from last year to replant this year. Think it will be permanent teff for me. I don't have a field sprayer, just one in my Kubota rtv for spot spraying. The coop (who does my spraying) could not guarantee that they would have a clean truck to spray rdup when I needed it so I went ahead and tilled. Think the dark exposed ground helps the quick germ time anyway.


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