Time for First Cutting

It is time or almost time for the first cutting of forages, depending on your location in Ohio and your forage quality goals. Orchardgrass was shooting a head in central Ohio last week. The alfalfa stands that were not severely injured by winter are looking great and about ready for first cutting as well across central Ohio. So begin to look for that open weather window for putting up some good forage.

For high quality feed, such as for lactating dairy cows, pure grass stands should be harvested in the late boot stage just before the heads start to peek out. The neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content of pure alfalfa stands can be estimated with the method described in an accompanying article.

A timely first and second cutting is critical for high quality forage. Fiber accumulates faster in the first two growth cycles in May and June than it does later in the summer. So for high quality forage, take your first and second harvest early if at all possible. Later in the summer (July into August) you can extend the cutting interval because the quality decline with delayed cutting is much less then than it is this time of the year.

An exception to the above rule of timely first cutting is for forage stands that suffered significant injury this past winter. Winter injured stands should be allowed to recover longer this spring and get into the bloom stage to build up energy reserves. This will help plants to recover from winter injury and regrow the rest of the summer. Use that forage for animals having lower nutrient requirements.

If high quality isn’t such a concern, we still have a little time before first harvest. For beef cows or other animals with lower nutrient requirements, you can harvest forage in the bloom stage for adequate quality, and it will provide higher yields. But don’t get too comfortable waiting. Keep an eye on the forage because it changes fast this time of year.

Here are the NDF targets (dry matter basis) to shoot for depending on class of livestock:

Forage NDF for Lactating Dairy Cows
Legumes: 35 to 42%
Grasses: 50 to 53%
Mostly legume: 42 to 45%
Mix: 44 to 48%
Mostly grass: 46 to 49%

Estimating Pre-Harvest Alfalfa NDF in the Field

Alfalfa neutral detergent fiber (NDF) concentration can be estimated in the field before harvest by following a simple procedure while walking across the field:

1. Choose a representative 2-square foot area in the field.
2. Determine the most mature stem in the sample area:
   
   • Vegetative = no buds or flowers are visible;
   • Bud = 1 or 2 nodes with buds visible;
   • Flower = 1 or more nodes with open flowers.
3. Measure the length of the tallest stem in the sample area. Measure it from the soil surface to the tip of the stem (not the leaf tip, but the stem tip). Straighten the stem to its full length when measuring. The tallest stem may not be the most mature stem you find.
4. Based on the stage of the most mature stem and length of the tallest stem, read the estimated NDF from the table below. For example, if the most mature stem has buds but no flowers and the tallest stem is 28 inches, then NDF = 38.0.
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 in several representative areas of the field and calculate the average value. More estimates gives a better overall average.

Note: This estimates the NDF of the standing crop and does not account for changes in fiber due to wilting, harvesting, and storage, all of which can raise the NDF by 3 to 6 units, assuming good wilting and harvesting conditions.

Estimated Pre-Harvest Alfalfa NDF

Length of tallest stem	Vegetative	Bud Stage	Flower Stage
(inches)	% NDF	% NDF	% NDF
16	28.5	29.7	31.4
17	29.2	30.4	32.0
18	29.9	31.1	32.7
19	30.6	31.8	33.4
20	31.3	32.5	34.1
21	32.0	33.2	34.8
22	32.7	33.9	35.5
23	33.4	34.6	36.2
24	34.0	35.3	36.9
25	34.7	35.9	37.6
26	35.4	36.6	38.3
27	36.1	37.3	38.9
28	36.8	38.0	39.6
29	37.5	38.7	40.3
30	38.2	39.4	41.0
31	38.9	40.1	41.7
32	39.6	40.8	42.4
33	40.3	41.5	43.1
34	40.9	42.2	43.8
35	41.6	42.8	44.5
36	42.3	43.5	45.2
37	43.0	44.2	45.8
38	43.7	44.9	46.5
39	44.4	45.6	47.2
40	45.1	46.3	47.9

 

Pay Attention to Hay Moisture Content

         Rory Lewandowski, Extension Educator Wayne County

           The goal in haymaking is to preserve forage quality in a form that can be used by livestock at a later date.  Each year however, dry matter and forage quality is lost due to spontaneous heating in hay that is caused by baling at too high of a moisture content.  Generally all bales left to air dry after baling at 15 to 20% moisture undergo some degree of heating beginning a couple of days after baling and continuing for a week to 10 days after baling.  The heat that is generated is a result of plant respiration and microorganisms on the hay consuming carbohydrates (sugars and starches).  In general, if temperatures do not exceed the 130 to 140 degree F range, quality damage is minimal.  However, if internal hay temperature exceeds 175 degrees F, then combustion and fire can occur.

Wayne Coblentz at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison Wisconsin examined the relationship between moisture content at baling, size of bales and forage quality using a heating degree days concept.  Heating degree days are calculated by subtracting 86 from the maximum internal bale temperature measured in degrees F, for each day of storage.  The difference is summed each day until bales reach the point where the difference between internal bale temperature minus 86 is zero.  His research basically showed that small square bales, baled at 20% or lower moisture accumulated a low level (200 or fewer) of heating degree days.  As bale size and diameter increased, baling at a moisture content of 20% resulted in more heating degree days accumulated and a higher risk of spontaneous heating leading to more significant quality losses.

Quality losses begin to increase dramatically as heating degree days exceed 300.  Quality losses include an increase in fiber concentration and a decrease in energy concentration due to heating.  For example, at 300 heating degree days the increase in neutral detergent fiber (NDF) was about 2 percentage units compared to the initial NDF concentration and the decrease in energy concentration was about 1 percentage unit.  At 600 heating degree days the increase in NDF was 7 percentage units and the decrease in energy concentration was about 5 percentage units.  Coblentz found that concentrations of NDF could increase by as much as 11 percentage points as a result of spontaneous heating.  The increases in NDF are a result of cell sugars being oxidized during microbial respiration.  So the fiber components increase because the cell soluble concentration decreases.  The other consequence of heating is that energy density as measured by total digestible nutrients is decreased because the sugars and cell solubles are 100% digestible while the fiber components are less digestible.

It is important to understand that some heating loss occurs in any bale made at 15% or greater moisture during the growing season, but heating losses increase as bale moisture content increases and/or as bale size increases.  Heating losses can be minimized by baling small square bales at 20% or lower moisture content, 18% or lower moisture content for large round bales and 16% or lower moisture content for large rectangular bales.  For legume hay production, these lower moisture contents are problematic because of increased leaf shatter and the associated forage quality loss.  In that case, in order to minimize heating losses and minimize leaf loss, it may be necessary to utilize a preservative or plastic wrap to permit baling at higher moisture contents.

Pasture Rental Resources

Recently Extension Farm Management specialists in the North Central Region updated resources on farm leasing. Ag Lease 101 is the website where you can find the information.  It contains publications discussing various lease arrangements and sample leases.  One publication is devoted to pasture rental agreements.

Considerations for Stored Forages

In December at the 2011 Buckeye Shepherds Symposium Dr. Bill Weiss, OSU Animal Sciences, gave a presentation on storing forages.  The session was recorded and published on-line.  It covers many of the considerations of storing forages.  You can view the presentation at:

Storing Forages by Dr. Bill Weiss 
( http://go.osu.edu/storingforages )

Help the Sun Make Hay When It Shines!

As the sun makes its appearance once again in Ohio, many forage producers are looking forward to making hay. But you should be patient to wait for firm soils before trying to mow the crop, especially in alfalfa. In addition, if your alfalfa is yellow and short, it could use a little time to recover from waterlogging stress.

Once the soils are firm though, how can we get hay cured as quickly as possible? There are proven techniques that shorten the time between cutting and storing the crop. Most of this article is reprinted with permission from an article published in Farm and Dairy on June 2, 2010, available at http://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/make-hay-when-sun-shines-but-take-steps-in-case-weather-wont-cooperate/15050.html. It still applies this year.

Haylage vs. hay:
Consider making silage or haylage instead of dry hay, whether it is stored in silos or bagged silage or as wrapped bales. Since haylage is preserved at higher moisture contents, it is a lot easier to get it to a proper dry matter content for safe preservation than it is to make dry hay. Proper dry matter content for chopping haylage can often be achieved within 24 hours as compared with to 3 to 4 days for dry hay.

Proper dry matter content for silage ranges from 30 to 50% (50 to 70% moisture) depending on the structure used, while wrapped balage should be dried to 40 to 55% dry matter (45 to 60% moisture). Compare that to dry hay that should be baled at 80 to 85% dry matter (15 to 20% moisture), depending on the size of the bale package. The larger and more dense the package, the dryer it has to be to avoid spoilage

Mechanically condition the forage:
Faster drying of cut forage begins with using a well-adjusted mower-conditioner to cause crimping/cracking of the stem (roller conditioners) or abrasion to the stems (impeller conditioners). At least 90% of the stems should be cracked or crimped with roller conditioners or show some mechanical abrasion when using impeller conditioners.

Some excellent guidelines for adjusting these machines can be found in an article by Dr. Ronald Schuler of the University of Wisconsin, available online at (http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/uwforage/storage.htm).

Consider chemical desiccants:
Desiccants are chemicals applied when mowing the crop that increase the drying rate. The most effective desiccants contain potassium carbonate or sodium carbonate. They are most effective on legumes than grasses and most useful for making hay rather than silage or balage.

Desiccants work best under good drying conditions, but don't help much when conditions are humid, damp, and cloudy. Consider the weather conditions before applying them.

Maximize exposure to sunlight:
Exposure to the sun is the single most important weather factor to speed drying. So the trick is to make the sun shine on as much of the cut forage as possible. This can be done by making the windrows as wide as possible, especially this time of year when our dry weather windows can be short. Wide windrows provide for maximum forage surface area to be exposed to the sunlight.

I once heard someone say "You can’t dry your laundry in a pile, so why can you expect to dry hay that way?"

The swath width should be about 70% of the actual cut area. The mowers on the market vary in how wide a windrow they can make, but even those that make narrow windrows have been modified to spread the windrow wider. Details can be found in articles at the Univ. of Wisconsin website mentioned above.

Another way to spread out and aerate the crop for faster drying is with a tedder. Tedders are especially effective with grass crops, but can cause excessive leaf loss in legumes if done with the leaves are dry. Tedders can be a good option when the ground is damp, because the crop can be mowed into narrow windrows to allow more ground exposure to sunlight for awhile, and then once the soil has dried a bit the crop can be spread out.

When making haylage, if drying conditions are good, rake multiple wide swaths into a windrow just before chopping. For hay, if drying conditions are good, merge or rake multiple wide swaths into a windrow the next morning when the forage is 40 to 60% moisture to avoid excessive leaf loss.

Recent research studies and experience have shown that drying forage in wide swaths can significantly speed up drying. Faster drying in wide swaths results in less chance of rain damage, and it produces higher quality forage. Studies reported by the University of Wisconsin showed that wide swaths (72% of the cut width) result in lower NDF and higher energy in the stored forage.

Consider a preservative:
Sometimes the rain just comes quicker than we have time for making dry hay. As mentioned above, making haylage helps with this problem, but another option is to use a preservative.
The most common and effective preservatives are based on proprionic acid. This acid can be caustic to equipment, but many buffered proprionic preservatives are available on the market that reduce this problem.

The preservatives inhibit mold growth and so allow safe baling a moisture contents a little higher than the normal range for dry hay. Carefully follow the manufacturer directions and application rates when using preservatives.

Watch wet bales carefully!
If you do happen to bale hay at higher moisture contents than desired, keep a close watch on it for two to three weeks. You should invest in a hay temperature probe and monitor the internal temperature of the hay during the first three weeks.

Every year someone’s barn burns down because of spontaneous combustion of wet hay. So if you have hay that is on the wet side, keep it outside or in a well-ventilated area. Don’t stack wet hay either, because that prevents the heat and moisture left in the hay from escaping.

It is normal for hay to go through a “sweat” in the few days after baling. Internal temperatures of 110 F in the first five days after baling are quite common in our region and are not a concern.
Hay bale temperatures of 120 to 130 F will likely result in mold growth and will make the protein in the hay less available to animals. But at those temperatures, there still is not a danger of fire.

The concern is if mold growth causes the temperature to go even higher. If the temperature in the hay continues to rise, reaching 160 to 170 F, then there is cause for alarm. At those elevated temperatures, other chemical reactions begin to occur that elevate the temperature much higher, resulting in spontaneous combustion of the hay in a relatively short period of time.

My hope is that a disastrous hay fire never happens to you or someone you know! It can be avoided by careful attention to the management practices I’ve outlined here and of course with a little cooperation from the sun! My best wishes to you for quick, safe, and successful hay and haylage making this season!

Dry Forage Samples With a Hair Dryer

Ag Engineer Dennis Buckmaster has developed plans for building a simple homemade tool to determine moisture content of forage samples.

Buckmaster designed the dryer out of a standard home hair dryer and materials available at hardware stores. The homemade dryer is called a "Vortex Dryer", so named because a CPVC pipe is attached to a funnel- or vortex-shaped container made from two round duct reducers.

The Vortex Dryer is easy to use, requires less supervision when drying samples than the microwave oven method, and requires less time to dry samples than a Koster tester.

The Vortex Dryer also gives very accurate results. The error error was -0.1%. Moisture estimates were within 1% of the actual value 95% of the time. There was no statistical difference between the vortex dryer results and those obtained when using the standard drying oven method.

For more information on the Vortex Dryer, including how to build and use one, see the Penn State Extension Fact Sheet entitled "A Vortex Forage and Biomass Sample Dryer", available online at http://www.abe.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/i/I101.pdf.

The Vortex Dryer would be useful for checking forage moisture levels at harvest or feeding time. Earlier this week Bill Weiss alerted Ohio corn silage growers to check their corn for dry matter content, as it is likely to be ready for chopping. The Vortex Dryer would be very useful in determining the dry matter content of corn silage in each field.

How to Determine Corn Silage Moisture

Corn silage chopping should begin soon in Ohio. As described in the recent post authored by Bill Weiss, for good fermentation corn should be chopped when whole plant dry matter is 30 to 35% for bunker silos and 32 to 38% for bags and upright silos.

To check the whole plant dry matter content in your fields, use the following procedure, collect 5 to 10 representative plants from the field. The plants should be uniformly chopped - a chipper shredder or silage chopper provides better chopping than chopping by hand with a meat cleaver or machete. After chopping, mix thoroughly to obtain a representative sample for drying.

Avoid sampling plants from border rows and areas not representative of the majority of the field. Be careful during mixing and subsampling to avoid non-representative grain to stover ratios in the sample to be dried.

Some people prefer sampling only 2 or 3 plants to reduce the chances of a non-representative grain to stover ratio. In this case, it is even more critical that plants be selected carefully to represent the average field conditions. It is best to create two subsamples for % DM determinations, and average the two values.

Dry the sample in a microwave oven or a Koster Tester. Each method requires a good scale that can measure in grams. More information on the microwave oven method is available at http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0004.html. For the Koster Tester, refer to the manufacturer's instructions, many of which have posted instructions online.

Corn Silage Ready for Harvest in Ohio

By Bill Weiss
OSU & OARDC, Dept. of Animal Sciences

In many areas of Ohio it has been dry and corn plants are approaching silage stage sooner than normal. To maximize yields of digestible energy and allow for good fermentation, corn for silage should be chopped at 30 to 35% dry matter (for bunker silos) and 32 to 38% dry matter for bags and upright silos.

In many areas of south and central Ohio corn plants contain 30-33% dry matter currently and chopping should be considered. Corn hybrid and local weather have a large effect on dry matter concentrations, so growers should start sampling fields and measuring dry matter now and when target dry matters are achieved they should start chopping. See related posting for information on how to sample and measure corn silage moisture.

With the expected high prices for corn grain, it is extremely important that livestock producers get the maximum nutrient value from their silage. Chopping too early (too wet) or too late (too dry) has substantial negative effects on the nutritive value of corn silage and affects how much grain supplementation is needed. Corn silage made at the incorrect dry matter concentration will reduce milk production (or growth) and/or will require more grain ($$$) to obtain the same milk and growth responses.

Determining the Cost of Hay

I’ve had several conversations regarding the cost of hay recently. One person, trying to determine what to charge for essentially renting hay ground, reasoned that if the renter was going to sell small square bales for $5 or more per bale, then they ought to have at least $2 per bale as their share. Another person told me that if there is a lot of grass growing that gets made into a lot of hay then hay will again be cheap ($50-60/ton?) as in past years. The cost of producing hay can be determined from the value of nutrients removed plus the equipment costs. Whether hay is actually worth what it costs to produce it is yet another question.

According to the Ohio Agronomy Guide, each ton of grass hay removes 40 lbs of nitrogen, 13 lbs of phosphate (P₂O₅) and 50 lbs of potash (K₂O). I called two local fertilizer dealers to get prices on per ton bulk quantities. Urea (46-0-0) was quoted at $690 and $788/ton, DAP (18-46-0) was quoted at $1050 and $1375/ton and potash (0-0-60) at $600 and $665/ton. Using these prices to replace the nitrogen, phosphate and potash removed in a ton of hay resulted in a cost of between $61.41 to $70.66 per ton. Since I was using DAP to replace the phosphate removed, this also provided about 5 lbs of nitrogen. The remaining 35 lbs was replaced using urea. Besides the fertilizer cost, there should be something figured in for spreading the fertilizer. Using the 2008 Ohio Farm Custom Rates, the average cost for spreading dry bulk fertilizer is about $4.50/acre.

It is true that hay can be produced without fertilizing. I see it happen all the time here in Athens County. So, should fertilizer cost be part of determining the cost of hay? Yes, because each ton of hay removes those nutrients whether they are replaced or not. It is a matter of pay now or pay later. The soil can get mined to the point where it is no longer practical to produce hay. To restore soil to good productivity then takes a massive investment to restore soil fertility. Every year I get phone calls where people say they will fertilize in the future, or they are waiting for fertilizer to get cheaper because it is too expensive. If your soil fertility levels are good, and you are pretty sure fertilizer prices are going to decrease, then go ahead and delay fertilizing. However, you should still include some fertilizer charge into your hay cost calculation based on that future fertilization.

The next part of calculating the cost of hay production is machinery/equipment expense. I used average cost figures from the 2008 Ohio Farm Custom Rates. These rates are based on survey responses of Ohio farmers. Your own equipment costs may vary, and if you know what they are, plug those in. For those who don’t know, this is a good place to start. Mowing is valued at $11.13/acre, tedding at $6.13/acre, raking at $6.59/acre and large round bale baling and hauling at $8.81 per bale. Since we talk about hay in terms of price/ton, these per acre costs will have to get converted into costs /ton. Here is where fertility will pay some dividends. As tonnage yields increase, the machinery costs of mowing, tedding and raking decrease on a per ton basis.

Let’s consider an example where hay production is at 2 tons per acre and large round bales weigh 1000 lbs. The machinery costs are $5.56/ton for mowing, $3.07/ton for tedding, $3.29/ton for raking and $17.62/ton for baling and hauling the bales. If we need to do one tedding and one raking before baling, our total machinery cost is $29.54/ton. Adding the machinery cost to the lower of our fertilizer quotes ($61.41) results in a total hay production cost of $90.95/ton. At the higher fertilizer quote ($70.66), the cost is $100.20/ton. This does not include the cost of spreading fertilizer.

Now, it may be possible to reduce these hay production costs somewhat. You might find a better deal on fertilizer. Maybe you have an even distribution of 30% or more legumes in your hay mix, so the legumes provide nitrogen. Possibly you can spread some livestock manure that accumulated on a heavy use-feeding pad. You might be able to take out a pass with the rake if the weather is right and just tedd the hay. Maybe your machinery costs are a little lower. The point is, even with some of these conditions, hay is still going to be an expensive commodity. If you are making your own hay, these production costs are there whether that hay is mowed and baled at 15% crude protein and 65% TDN or at 7% crude protein and 48% TDN.

Then again, maybe the best situation is to find a neighbor or some other person who likes to make hay and hasn’t pushed a pencil on the costs. You just might run into a good deal.