Brockctt’s Ag Advice
K ' By John E. Brockett
M Farm Management Agent
Lewistown Extension Office
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Three Cheers for (Quality) Hay!
American agriculture has
become the most effective
agriculture in the world due to a
number of reasons. One of these
reasons has been the rather unique
cooperation between the farmer,
the researcher, and the com
mercial interests. For many years
the catalyst bringing the three
ingredients together has been the
Cooperative Extension Service or
as many farm families knew it, the
“county agents.”
My father was a “county agent”
for well over 40 years in New
Jersey. Those of you who are
regular readers of this column
know that I periodically quote him
on management and marketing
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ideas. Actually this column did not
start off as an ode to extension, so I
will save that for a future column
and get on with business.
Sometimes in the hurry to
publish experimental reports from
both the academic researcher or
the commercial researcher,
results are not as critically
analyzed as they should be. I was
pleased when someone else
questioned the results in print from
a study that showed no increase of
somatic cell count from stress on a
cow’s udder (mishandling,
overmilking and the like). The
study results showed that the only
thing that raised somatic cell
counts was infection. From .a
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practical point of view the
dissenter said “what is the dif
ference?” I would agree with his
sentiments.
A few days ago I was reading
about an experiment done in
Florida with dairy cows and alfalfa
hay. The purpose of the ex
periment was a bit cloudy, but the
conclusions were that alfalfa
protein was not as good as soybean
meal protein for milk production.
Unfortunately the report on that
particular experiment lacked a
number of verifying facts, so
should be taken with a grain of
salt.
This is the case with a number of
experiments that are reported in
the so called “popular press”. Too
often these experiments are
reported as news before all of the
facts are really known. In the 30
years that I have been in extension
in Pennsylvania, I have noted that
the most profitable dairymen are
invariably those who pay a lot of
attention to producing top quality
hay or haylage. That does not
mean that good cow production
records cannot be made with hay
forage of lesser quality.
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Time and time again people do
make good production records
even with rather low quality hay or
haylage. Some of these herds even
top the DHIA list, for whatever
that is worth. What it does mean to
me is that milk produced with
medium or low quality hay and/or
haylage costs more to produce
than milk made with high quality
forage. A c :1K "Hoes take a
downward treti*. the neju few
years, cost of production will
become more and more critical.
Those who can produce milk for |8
per cwt will obviously remain
profitable, while those who insist
on producing milk for $l4 will find
it more and more difficult to stay
in business without some type of
subsidy. Even low interest loans,
loan deferment, free money
(unpaid bills), family loans, and
off farm jobs may not be enough to
stave off the inevitable for those
who have no desire to reduce their
cost of production.
The time to start reducing
production costs is right now. Start
out with producing the very best
hay quality possible. Be ready to
harvest when the alfalfa is in its
.> ' i
Lancaster Farming Saturday, April 19,1986415
best stage of growth, not when it is
most convenient for you. Set
you have a lot of things
that need to be done in the spring
and not enough time to do all of
them. Hay or haylage making
should have a top priority because
(1) first cutting will usually
represent half or more of your total
hay crop; (2) how and when you
take off the first cutting will have a
major effect on the size and quality
of the later cuttings; (3) alfalfa
protein is one of the least ex
pensive sources of protein you can
feed right now; and (4) everything
else that needs to be done on the
farm will fall into place once hay
harvest is completed.
I would strongly recommend
that you make several “rainy day”
lists of jobs that can be done when
the weather does not cooperate
with hay making. It would also be
advisable to make as much of that
first crop into haylage as possible.
Why? Haylage requires less drying
time and the spring often contains
few periods of more than three
days at a time of decent drying
weather. Haylage can usually be
completely harvested in less time
than hay and the earlier the first
cutting is taken off the field, the
earlier the second cutting can get
started. As “Kermit the Frog”
would say on “Sesame Street”
(ask your kids about this one)
“Lets have three cheers for hay
yayy,yayy,yayy!”
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M6IMM9 MILK RECORDS!
Lancaster Farming Carries
DHIA Reports Each Monthl
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