# Drought and Hay



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I can never remember such a widespread drought situation affecting so many people. It is still early yet, but I am holding my square bales until I see whats going to happen. July could bring frequent rains and replenish the land, but from the current perspective it looks like hay supplies could be very tight. Triple digits for the next four days with 107 high Saturday.....sounds like Mexico. I will take care of my regulars, but for the rest I say "laissez faire".

Regards, Mike


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

My hay supply is way down from last year. First, weevils nailed the alfalfa first cutting bad! Second, grass needed more moisture in April/May for first cutting; no second cutting planned yet. Third, alfalfa yields for 2nd cutting running about 75%. Fourth, rotated some fields into corn because the money was better.

I have enough for my livestock, but not much more.

Ralph


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

That's how most people operated here during last years drought. I hate to hear you guys are going through it and hopefully it won't be as bad. Down here, a lot of the fields have not recovered yet because of the price of fertilzer. There is not a lot of hay on the market and prices are still high. I've just baled three of my fields over the last week and gotten very good yields, as has jdhayboy down the road. However, both of us are pretty liberal with fertilizer and we've gotten decent rain. Right now, I'm running about $2.50/bale (small squares) in fertilizer costs....at the current prices, that's pretty cheap. I'm getting ready to dump more fertilizer on and I'm taking over equipment storage space to store hay.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Here in Northern Colorado I'm irrigating one grass field one last time and that will be it unless it rains here or in the Denver area to fill up the rivers. We have let one field go dry. Hay prices are climbing. We got a normal first cutting though. I guess I'll my first ever summer vacation. It sure feels like the end of July and not the end of just June. We've been irrigating since about the middle of March. Normally we start in the middle of April.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

We've been blessed with good rains until the last two weeks. In May we got 8" and in the first two weeks of June we got 4.6" but only a .1" since then. Corn is starting to roll up fast and the soybeans and millet my wife drilled in for hay a week ago has just started to pop and it looks rough. What she planted two weeks ago still looks pretty good. If the heat comes in starting tomorrow like they keep saying with 3-4 days over a 100 degrees I hate to see what it's going to look like a week from now.

If we get 3 to 4 days in a row over 100 it'll be the first I can remember it ever doing that here. I've been a weather nut since I was a kid and I'm pushing 50 now. Even the longtime local weather guy said on TV last night said he had never seen anything like it in the Piedmont area of NC.

About the only thing my wife said she was going to do, besides feeding the cows of course, during the next 4 days was doing some spot spraying around fences and buildings, usually the hotter the better for zapping those pesky weeds that seem to defy logic and grow no matter how dry it may be. She puts her 15 gallon sprayer in the back of the golf cart with a top on it for shade and away she goes.

Let's all pray for some rain.


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## Texasmark (Dec 20, 2011)

Looks like we are moving into the dry summer that the weather guys forecast. I planted drought resistant varieties of grass and so far I am happy. Other thing is I am on Houston Black Clay and we had a lot of rain this spring that my fields absorbed. That really helps dryland haying during a drought.

We'll see what happens.
Mark


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

First cutting here went 40-70% of normal. Second cutting is half of normal. But hopefully that improves as it was only a week from the 2" rain we got until I cut what needed done. Hopefully the fields that 1st cut was made later on have a chance to use that water before it starts to show signs of blooming.


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## jdhayboy (Aug 20, 2010)

I wud say my good square bale patches are back to normal or very close to. In April I sprayed fields, gave chemical time to work, cut and rolled up the fields with no fertilizer applied. I call it clean up cut, still got top dollar for rolls. 2nd cut hit everything with good dose of fertilizer, coastal and Alicia made 60-70 squares an acre. Jiggs not so good at 35-40. Maybe Jiggs isn't as drought tolerant or maybe is a late spring bloomer?? 3rd cut lots of fertilizer and now Jiggs is up to 65-75 an acre. All of others are still same. Been fortunate to have good timely rains to go along with risking expensive fertilizer. 
It's been super hot here all week and we are almost done with this cutting. Next week we will be begging for rain. Its really dry here already.


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## jdhayboy (Aug 20, 2010)

I wud say my good square bale patches are back to normal or very close to. In April I sprayed fields, gave chemical time to work, cut and rolled up the fields with no fertilizer applied. I call it clean up cut, still got top dollar for rolls. 2nd cut hit everything with good dose of fertilizer, coastal and Alicia made 60-70 squares an acre. Jiggs not so good at 35-40. Maybe Jiggs isn't as drought tolerant or maybe is a late spring bloomer?? 3rd cut lots of fertilizer and now Jiggs is up to 65-75 an acre. All of others are still same. Been fortunate to have good timely rains to go along with risking expensive fertilizer. 
It's been super hot here all week and we are almost done with this cutting. Next week we will be begging for rain. Its really dry here already.
a


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Started 1st cutting alfalfa on April 8th, 3 weeks earlier than record and got a near normal yield. 2nd cut was better, 3rd cut on good clay ground was decent, reclaim ground burned up. Now 4th cut on good clay is burned up. I think we are going to start mowing corn and baling it next week. I do not feed any livestock, but every beef cow in this part of the world has been eating hay for 3 weeks now and nobody had enough inventory to feed for 10 months. I am going to sell "corn hay" instead of corn grain this year.


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## OneManShow (Mar 17, 2009)

Tough weather for everyone it seems. We've only made about five acres of hay-195 to go. Looks like a stretch of dry weather will be here Sunday-if forecast holds. Everyone else is burning up in record setting heat and we haven't had more than 3 days over 80 deg. Some of you have no hay to cut, our grass is tall and leaning over-and mostly over ripe-Somebody must be having perfect weather. . .somewhere?


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## jdhayboy (Aug 20, 2010)

Hate to hear that haybaler, I know how it is to be in that situation. Hope things turn around for Yall.


OneManShow said:


> Tough weather for everyone it seems. We've only made about five acres of hay-195 to go. Looks like a stretch of dry weather will be here Sunday-if forecast holds. Everyone else is burning up in record setting heat and we haven't had more than 3 days over 80 deg. Some of you have no hay to cut, our grass is tall and leaning over-and mostly over ripe-Somebody must be having perfect weather. . .somewhere?


Even tho it is a little dry right now, we here at my have actually close enough to perfect weather for me. Dodged rain two days ago with 250 acres on the ground. Just now finished square Baling and rain came within maybe 5 miles again. . After today Shud only have about 40 acres to roll up. And lots of round bales to move.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

jdhayboy said:


> Hate to hear that haybaler, I know how it is to be in that situation. Hope things turn around for Yall.
> 
> Even tho it is a little dry right now, we here at my have actually close enough to perfect weather for me. Dodged rain two days ago with 250 acres on the ground. Just now finished square Baling and rain came within maybe 5 miles again. . After today Shud only have about 40 acres to roll up. And lots of round bales to move.


Glad you folks are having a better season this year after what you had to endure last year. You deserve it.

Regards, Mike


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## cwright (Oct 19, 2011)

I mowed in late May early June and was hoping for good rainfall for the second cut. Was thinking about mowing it off again because the clover has bloomed out and starting to get burned up slong with the other grass.
Going to be HOT and very dry for the next few days. Sure hope its not a long trend.

CW


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## CockrellHillFarms (Aug 30, 2011)

I heard on the news two days ago that its the driest here since 1911. Basically 100 here for the next 10 days. It's going to get tight. The straw I planned to sell is staying home. If we get some good snow that stays on the ground a while I'm going to have to fed it. Prob have to figure out a way to inject it. My normal customers have their squares but as some of you guys said. The rest is staying in the barn until winter. I locked heifers and bull calves up to get them off of pasture. And we are building fence on stuff we haven't had cows on in 3-4 years. Been using it as hay ground but it's gonna have to be kept for pasture this year. I'm hoping for some rain in early August. Pastures are pretty much wind burnt at this point. Its crazy that we started off so early with good rain and high temps. Grass got off to a good start but it went down hill real quick. Glad my alfalfa is doing pretty well or at least ok. I keep it pretty well maintained. I think I'm going to end up 3,000 square bales short and 200 rnd bales short of what I planned on/what I fertilized for. So Wheat straw is going to have to do. A guy down the road bought 1,000 straw rnd bales. He thinks he's going to have to feed them as well. Not many people have enough grass hay to feed for 8-9 months. I guess I can always feed my squares that I haven't sold. I think I will sell cows before I do that though. This could get pretty hairy.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I heard today at lunch that about 20% of the irrigation wells north of me have gone dry.

Ralph


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

In south Georgia we have had decent rainfall and this second cutting should be fairly good, 2tpa, but seems to be drying up with no rain in the forecast, over 100 today, Bermuda grass loves this heat, if it has h2o


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

The 30 acres of pasture that we have are burning up fast. Usually we cut and bale parts of it in June to stay ahead of the growth; not this year. Ist cut alfalfa was okay, too early, and hurt by frost; second cut was good, as was first cut on new seeding. Third cut on established alfalfa looks okay, but the new seeding will be struggling if we get no rain soon.


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## MistyRidgeFarm (Jun 30, 2012)

Getting bad here as well. First cutting was 30% lower and this drought is pretty much wiping out second cut. Guess I'll be building more fence sooner than I planned.


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## what1 (Jun 30, 2012)

We have been cutting but are thinking about waiting to see if we can get some rain before cutting anything else. Also thinking about waiting until this fall to get a better cut. Anyone have an opinion or advice? Should we keep cutting and get what we can or wait?


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## sedurbin (May 30, 2009)

> Should we keep cutting and get what we can or wait?


I'll let you know the answer in a couple months.


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