# Just how wet are some areas?



## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

I was looking at the Palmer Drought Index Charts ... AgFax
and see you folks west and northwest of me are quite wet...seen the real moist area talked about as far away as Idaho...so how is your little neck of the woods? I thought we were a little more wet than the chart states in NC Indiana, but are shown as normal.


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Wet wet here in Southwest Idaho! 
We've had measurable precip for probably 20 of the last 30 days. I don't know how much moisture we've gotten but it has been one of the most prolonged wet spells I've ever seen in my 30+ years in this area. We haven't turned on a pump in over two weeks to irrigate - we are typically running 24/7 from April thru October in our operations. Also way behind on heat units this spring. Only about 35% of normal compared to the last 10 years.
Very little hay went up early in good condition and the rest is either on the ground getting ruined or should have been on the ground weeks ago. Either way, quality hay will be hard to come by on first cutting- which is what the dairies really go for. And we are in an arid desert climate (theoretically) that normally lends itself to putting up premium quality hay all season long most years.


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

dbergh said:


> Very little hay went up early in good condition and the rest is either on the ground getting ruined or should have been on the ground weeks ago. Either way, quality hay will be hard to come by on first cutting- which is what the dairies really go for. And we are in an arid desert climate (theoretically) that normally lends itself to putting up premium quality hay all season long most years.


They won't have mush straw and now it seems they won;t have much premium dry alfalfa. Gonna get interesting.


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## OneManShow (Mar 17, 2009)

Sopping wet in Western OR-nothing new though. I've been whining about the weather in a different post, may as well whine here too.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Here, near St. Louis, we are 2.79" under normal (just saw it on the news last night). But the rainfall pattern is 20-40% chance 3-4 days, 1-2 sun. And 20-40% chance turns into 100% when I have hay on the ground!


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Here in east central ohio we had over 5 inches of rain this week. At least one confirmed tornado touched down in our county. The fields are very wet and the hay is laying flat in most fields. Not a good start to 2010. Does not look like a good week this week either with a 70% chance on wednesday and more rain for the weekend.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

You sound like us last year dberg. Cool wet summer, most of the row crops did not have a chance to mature properly before the first killing frost. Had beans with green lower pods and green stems. Corn ran light on test weight.

Not to horribly wet up here in N. Indiana atm, but chance of ran tonight, tomorrow, then again late Thursday afternoon and Friday. The pastures are wet enough now if a person went out to clip em and didn't know where the seeps and springs are, they'd bury the tractor right up to the axles. Only have one hayfield atm I'd be a little leary to be driving on, course with the forecast, I won't be getting to that one anytime soon anyways.


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## wheatridgefarmMD (Sep 14, 2008)

wet? whatchu talkin bout willis? over the past month and half scattered showers anywhere from 2/10 to 8/10 total rainfall. all winter we were under water and now cant get enough to grow right


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## farmboy9510 (Feb 16, 2009)

We just got about 3inch on saturday night. I'm still waiting for some dry weather to drop some hay.
I live in southwesten Ontario.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

We are on the verge of being dry here in East Tennessee although we have had thunderstorms pop up almost every late afternoon in various locals. Not enough to really do one any good , but plenty to make life miserable haying. We are over 4 inches below normal in rainfall. I am not complaining as I prefer dry to wet. Regards, Mike


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

You guys in the northern states are talking about how wet your areas are. Here in eastern Texas where we normally aren't hurt for rainfall until sometime in July and August, we are/were about 9 inches behind the average which is about 20 inches through May. Finally, after two months of receiving only 0.3 inches two different times, we received about 1.75 inches yesterday and today. Now, after fertilizing the hay meadow about 4 weeks ago, we may be able to make a hay cutting in a couple of weeks. There are two counties near San Antonio where the rivers are out of their banks bc of excess rainfall. A friend who used to be fly out of Laredo, TX with the airforce described Texas weather (rainfall) as "a perpetual drought interspersed by infrequent flooding."


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

Absolute wetest spring we have ever had since we were baling hay! We have baled hay twice this spring without getting any moisture on the hay before baling and everything has had to have acid on it to go up. With the humidity we have had, dry down has been very tough. Next 15 days on forcast show 2 days without rain;.). We should be starting on second cutting now, but we only have 25% of first cutting up. Really need the weather to break soon.


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## chief-fan (Aug 27, 2009)

Been wet all spring in SW Iowa. Lot of beans being planted when the first cutting was ready. With the weather as it is, I only cut what I can get up and put away the same day I bale. Got about ¼ of the first cutting up. Have some down that will round bale and use for a wind break. Turned it yesterday and had water standing in the field in several places and right next to a deep creek too. Forecast does not have a dry day in it for the next 10 days. Nothing less than 30% chance of rain. Weatherman's CYA theory at work first hand. Put rain in there in case it does.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

over 7 inches since memorial day. less than 10% of the first cutting put up so far.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Was dry here last 1/2 of May.Was a few beans laying in dry dirt.Some guys took alfalfa pre bud stage and got it put up in great shape.

Then I cut hay and it starts to rain.Have gotten about 3" in last 10 days.Water is starting to stand in low spots.Hope we miss it tonight calling for more bad weather.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Production Acres said:
 

> Next 15 days on forcast show 2 days without rain;.). We should be starting on second cutting now, but we only have 25% of first cutting up. Really need the weather to break soon.


I hear yah, not a whole lot better up here in N. Indiana. About the same here far as the forecast, supposed to have two whole days without rain, then rain again everyday for the next 4 or 5 days. Not getting large amounts so it's not like the ground is saturated, just keep getting a few tenths in the late morning, then again around 4 or so in the afternoon. Been cloudy with humidity thru the roof on the days it hasn't rained and is such poor drying weather, I'm not even sure if a person can get it dry enough to make silage bales out of it before the next rain comes in.

Starting to get calls now for people needing hay and they aren't so worried if it might be getting on the ripe side as long as it was made dry and is mold/dust free.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Starting to get calls now for people needing hay and they aren't so worried if it might be getting on the ripe side as long as it was made dry and is mold/dust free.[/QUOTE]








I agree mlappin, I can sell past ripe hay a whole lot easier than hay that has been wet and has a "off" color. This has been the most bizarre haying season in many years here in East Tennesssee. Thunderstorms every other day and mostly to partly cloudy for the best part of 4 weeks. We are behind in rainfall approaching five inches and the ground is dry! I am watering my yard right now! The humidity has hovered around 85% for the last 3 weeks which is high for late May early June. We have just enough rainfall every other day to make haylife absolutely tough. Oh well, it can be worse. I have my best timothy/orchard grass field in my river bottom, but have not been able to cut it for the past three weeks. Certainly on the downward slide now. Just do not want to get it wet and I could not have got it up any earlier due to the spotty rain and unusual heavy cloud cover. Good small squares will be at a premium come winter! Regards, Mike


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## nosliw (Feb 8, 2010)

Same here, VOL. Seems like there's a rouge thunderstorm breaking out every other day around here.

I've only got 1/3rd of my hay put up, 1/2 of which got wet twice. It makes it even more difficult without a tedder.









I didn't have any get wet in a windrow until last night. It's not much, so I dodged a bullet there!


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

mlappin said:


> Not getting large amounts so it's not like the ground is saturated, just keep getting a few tenths in the late morning, then again around 4 or so in the afternoon. Been cloudy with humidity thru the roof on the days it hasn't rained and is such poor drying weather, I'm not even sure if a person can get it dry enough to make silage bales out of it before the next rain comes in.
> .


Same here near St. Louis. I have 35 ac alfalfa been ready for its second cutting 10 days now. It looks like there is a high pressure area moving in Wednesday, so I am planning on cutting 20 ac Tuesday night. I figure if it gets rained on immediately after cutting, no harm done. It's when its almost dry that does the damage. I'll cut the other 15 Wednesday night.


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## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

We are getting rain everyday. Over an inch last night. an inch per day for the last 4 days. Replanted corn twice, some beans still left to plant. One neighbor hasn't started beans. Little or no hay put up without rain on it. Ground is so soggy we are having trouble mowing the yard. Lower hay ground flooded and flat. Very thankful for the crops we do have. Maybe a total lose for good quality hay here. Mark


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

kfarm_EC_IL said:


> We are getting rain everyday. Over an inch last night. an inch per day for the last 4 days. Replanted corn twice, some beans still left to plant. One neighbor hasn't started beans. Little or no hay put up without rain on it. Ground is so soggy we are having trouble mowing the yard. Lower hay ground flooded and flat. Very thankful for the crops we do have. Maybe a total lose for good quality hay here. Mark


Mark, 
Didn't you make this same post about this time last year! This sucks, 3rd bad year in a row for dry hay in S. IN. Can't even make balage because it rains every day. Mowed 40 acres of 2nd cut alfalfa (2 weeks over mature) last Thursday on a 30% chance for Sat and Sun. Tedded Friday morning, rained 0.2" Friday night, tedded sat morning, rained 0.1" sat night. Gave up Sunday, rained 0.3" Sunday night, hay molding underneath by Monday, rained 0.6" Monday night, hay rotten by today with regrowth coming thru, rained 1.3" tonight. This sucks, haven't had this much fun since last year! Good news, my corn and beans look great. Think I might be just a row crop farmer by next year.


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## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

Yes, A very broken record. Some folks north of us lose some grain bins to straight line wind, also had hail yesterday. We still had hopes for the bottom hay ground however yesterdays storm took care of that and the corn down there. It will clear off eventually. What do you do with hay that was cut and is no good now? What about hay that is on the back side of mature? Do I bushog it high and let it regrow or will it regrow now at all?


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Hopefully, I can find a market for mulch. I think the rained on stuff may work for that. If not, plenty of washouts to fill in after these torrential rains are done.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

For hay that's been rained on to the point it won't even work for bedding, we used to take the forage chopper and just blow it back on the field.

Looks like I get 2 1/2 days of clear weather here, then another 3 of rain. I could wrap it and for sure have it off the field before the rain, but I'm getting a feeling dry hay is gonna be worth a lot more this year.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

mlappin said:


> For hay that's been rained on to the point it won't even work for bedding, we used to take the forage chopper and just blow it back on the field.
> 
> Looks like I get 2 1/2 days of clear weather here, then another 3 of rain. I could wrap it and for sure have it off the field before the rain, but I'm getting a feeling dry hay is gonna be worth a lot more this year.


Don't have a field chopper anymore, think we are going to make 3X3's and use them for erosion control on some ditches. Done this with corn stalk bales and it works great to slow down the water. Mowing 2nd cut alfalfa today and going to wrap it tomorrow and friday. I agree with mlappin, dry hay will be at a premium, but at this point any good feed will be at a premium, guys will just have to figure out how to use balage. Plus, I will have the 3rd cut on the way, and surely July will be drier!


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Heard it on the radio and the tv news so it's official now. This June has been the wettest here in a 115 years of record keeping. Not sure if that was just St. Joseph county, the area in general, or northern Indiana, but it's wet here is all I can say.

Got stuck for the first time ever in a hay field trying to get silage bales made, then turned around and did it twice more. Strange soil, got hung in places that looked dry, then turned around and drove thru a inch of standing water and never left a track. Still have about 2 acres of that left to do something with, the v rake left wheel tracks in it so I know I didn't want to drive there.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

mlappin said:


> Got stuck for the first time ever in a hay field trying to get silage bales made, then turned around and did it twice more.


I use a general rule of thumb that if I have to use 4WD, it's probably to wet to be in the field.









Ralph


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

rjmoses said:


> I use a general rule of thumb that if I have to use 4WD, it's probably to wet to be in the field.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I'd say.

New baling tractor isn't here yet so I still had my grandfather's Oliver 1600D on the baler. Only FWA tractor we have was on the anhydrous bar, have three four wheel drives, smallest one has the spray tank and boom on it yet, next one up is the large shaft 1000rpm only, the biggest is a mule and has no pto.

Got a dirty look from father the first time it happened, then he turned around and dropped the loader tractor in a seemingly dry spot. So I returned the favor. After that we ran all the bales to the driveway with a Bobcat that has the wide rubber tracks on it.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Like I stated above, wettest June in a hundred and fifteen years of record keeping. Now its gone opposite, after almost 10 days of no rain, the guys that worked their light ground into a powder before planting it are hurting. Before eleven this morning, the corn was already curled up tight, drove by some of our no till ground and only the hilltops were just starting to curl on the sand. The rest of the no till looks great, even the low spots on our heavy clays have finally lost that yellow tinge.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

One month ago I posted on this thread that we were 4 inches below normal in rainfall, but had "popcorn" thunderstorms making haying miserable. Now, here, we are 8 inches below normal and very dry. 98 degrees is the prediction for wednesday and thursday with a chance of rain saturday or Sunday. I prefer too dry to too wet though. I personally think it is all AL GORES fault







Regards, Mike


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Plant in the dust, the bins will bust.

If it's dry to start with, roots go deeper right from the get go.

I'm worried about the fact that it has been so wet, nothing will have put down deep enough roots to make it thru some of these dry spells.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Went for a plane ride yesterday.(Won it at Firemans Raffle)Was that ever interesting to see the crops from the air.Areas that had heavier rains look like crap,drownded out spots and yellow corn.Go a few miles and get in area with less rain and crops look alot better.

See alot of mistakes from the air.Seen one larger farmer that has all the new latest and greatest GPS drove on ALOT of corn spraying it.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

swmnhay said:


> Went for a plane ride yesterday.(Won it at Firemans Raffle)Was that ever interesting to see the crops from the air.Areas that had heavier rains look like crap,drownded out spots and yellow corn.Go a few miles and get in area with less rain and crops look alot better.


A neighbor used to be heavy into the para planes and ultralights, tried to talk dad into buying a paraplane as he claimed no better way to scout crops. Can fly low and slow over the crops if required, also claimed at certain times of the year, you can tell where every tile in the field is at.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Our local paper has the weather section that is handled by one of the local TV meteorologists. This guy isn't any more accurate than the rest, which means he's wrong most of the time but he does include interesting weather facts with every edition. Like I pointed out before, June here was the wettest in 115 years of record keeping.

The latest tidbit he included was that last year for June-July 2009 we had 8 days with thunderstorms, this years same June-July period has had 32 days with thunderstorms or every other day. No wonder I'm a month behind. Granted it wasn't like every odd day or even day had thunderstorms with some periods of 3-5 days at a time with clear skys then 3-5 days in a row with t-storms.

Other little tidbit is that we are only one half inch above normal for July. This has to be taken with a grain of salt as if I remember correctly he's stationed on the north side of South Bend which actually makes him closer to Michigan than to me. I don't find this hard to believe actually as we've had a lot of storms come thru, make a ton of noise and a lot of wind and end up with a couple of tenths or maybe a quarter inch. Then the next day the sun will come out, the wind will blow and it will be back to dusty then pull the same stuff again with a storm the next day.


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## torwood9 (Jun 22, 2010)

Forecast says 7 straight days of rain coming up in Central WI, We are the wettest we have been in a long time. Crops are at the tipping point. Cutting up fields pretty bad right now, not as bad as I thought it would be though.


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## MikeRF (Dec 21, 2009)

We now have that same 7 day forecast in Ontario for thunderstorms everyday.
All kinds of hay cut on Thursday with the promise of good weather through till Monday. Now that we've got rain Sunday morning the prospects don't look good!
The week previous rain was forecast for 4 of the 7 days. Nothing got cut and we did not get a drop of rain. Opportunity missed.
Who said this haying thing was fun!!!!!


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Same thing here. Had light showers Thursday morning, mowed that afternoon. Instead of low humidity Saturday it was rather high. Part of it baled Saturday, had a very heavy dew Sunday morning and was cloudy till 3:30 in the afternoon when the sun finally came out. Finished another part of it late Sunday. Now chance of showers tonight, tomorrow, clear Tuesday then rain from Wednesday till at least Sunday. When I mowed it was suppsoed to be clear till at least Monday night if not Tuesday night.

If it wasn't for the fact I have practically upgraded all the hay equipment the last couple of years I would seriously be thinking about getting the last cutting off this fall, hitting it all hard with 2-4D and roundup, again in the spring, and no-tilling it all to corn in 2011.

Wish I could find the article I read in March, couple of "experts" were saying this was supposed to be a normal year as historically we never have three wet years in a row.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Who woulda thunk it? Went from a mudhole to a dustbowl. Been fighting the rain since the 7th of May, now that I want to plant hay, it's a dustbowl. Field is way too dry to even attempt it. Had just a little less than half a inch, but the hill tops are still powder to the point I had to engage the 4 wheel drive on the pickup. Next ten days are supposed to be dry according to a few forecasts.

Supposed to be planted by Sept. 1st in our area, looks like it might be a touch later than that at this rate.


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