At the 2015 California World Ag Expo, there was a “house” built out of every variety of straw grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. A sign boasted, “The house that straw built.”

The display belonged to Ast Hay Company. “It kind of resonated. Our family has always been in the straw business as a major commodity,” says Don Ast, owner of the company.

In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, Ast’s father, Wilbur Ast, shipped mainly wheat straw into the California racetracks. Don helped out by driving a truck in the company fleet.

He took over the company in 1971 and started shipping straw from Oregon to California. At first, he couldn’t find any trucks to ship the straw down that way.

“I said, ‘Hey, there’s lots of 53-foot dry vans going to California empty every day. Those guys need a load.’ So we figured out a way of loading those vans."

"We went down there, talked to a few customers that we had, and said, ‘We can get you lots of straw, but we have to ship it in these vans.’ So we sent some equipment down there to assist them in unloading their trailers,” Ast says.

Other hay shippers in the area now copy this idea. Adapting to current market needs with innovative ideas continued to be a pattern for Ast through the following years. In the early ’80s, Ast was shipping some hay to Asia when he discovered that the Japanese dairies needed ryegrass straw.

“A lot of those commodities that are high in nutritional value are cheaper on the world market than they are in the U.S. They would get the nutritional value they needed from these commodities, and they used the straw as a roughage source,” Ast says.

Cheap freight rates to encourage filling empty containers on their way back to Japan made shipping straw a profitable option. Ast seized the opportunity and contacted grass seed growers in the Willamette Valley.

“In 1982, grass straw was a waste product with a negative cost of disposal. Today, 600,000 tons are shipped each year with an Oregon container yard value of about $150 per ton or $90 million."

"Because it is a product that has zero value and is completely processed within the state, you can multiply the container yard value by 4.5, and you get a total impact on the economy of Oregon of more than $400 million a year. All that from a problem product that was about to put the grass seed farmers out of business,” Ast says.

But there was a problem. At the time, re-compressed bales were bound with steel bands. The steel bands were dangerous, sometimes springing open when cut and injuring those nearby, and the Japanese wanted something safer.

Here was another opportunity. Ast developed the first bale re-compressor that used baling twine.

“That revolutionized the industry at that time because we were able to deliver to the Japanese a product they wanted. We were the only ones for a long time that could offer that,” Ast says.

Later, the three-tie bale was phasing out of the U.S. industry and was being replaced by the large half-ton bale. But this didn’t work for the Japanese market. They needed the small bales they had been getting.

So Ast developed a machine that sliced, weighed and re-compressed large bales into the size they needed without disturbing the leaf pattern. Everyone uses some similar type of machine now, he says.

“You’ve got to be nimble, and you’ve got to be versatile,” Ast says about being in the industry.

Opportunities to benefit the hay industry may come at unexpected times. In the early ’70s, Ast was driving in California when he came across a truck hauling automobiles. The trailer had an 18-inch extension, and Ast had to know why that was legal.

He stopped at a weigh station and asked why the automobile truckers could have an extension and hay haulers couldn’t. The answer: You don’t have a powerful enough lobby.

Ast then called his state senator, who told him to re-write the paragraph in the code book how he thought it ought to be. The senator approved it, and it “went sailing through” and was signed into law.

There was a fight for a while afterwards because the California Highway Patrol wouldn’t recognize the new law, but they pulled through, and today hay haulers in California can have an 18-inch extension on their trailers when they’re loaded.

“It’s just what someone can do if they’ve got their eyes open and are using their head. There are things out there today that people can change. Just get in there, get on the phone, and you can make changes,” Ast says.

That wasn’t the only time Ast spoke up about something that bothered him. In 1983, Ast started shipping hay from Idaho to California. The two states had different official hay tests with different formulas that gave different results. This caused a lot of trouble for people shipping hay.

With the help of two others from Penn State University and the University of California, Ast drew attention to the issue, and soon there were meetings with many different universities to come to a consensus about which formula should be used universally.

“I tell you, there was blood on the floor because every one of those universities had their own pet formula for figuring out the value of hay,” Ast says.

There was finally agreement on one specific formula, and it became the Uniform Alfalfa Testing Program, and it is accepted by all states except California.

“It all comes from someone getting upset and saying, ‘Something’s got to be done about this mess,’ and you get on board and you just keep pushing. And we really had some opposition,” Ast says.

Ast will be the first to tell you that running his business for more than 40 years hasn’t been all roses. In 2002, Ast had to file bankruptcy after struggling for eight years with a financial mess one of his managers had created. He had to start all over again. But Ast was perseverant as well as innovative and proactive.

“You just have to put that behind you, and just keep going, and just keep trying different ideas, and finally you get something that hits pay dirt.

“I can tell you several horror stories about ideas I thought were going to work, and they blew up in my face. And that’s just going to happen. I have a saying around here: ‘You try five ideas and you get two.’ A lot of your ideas aren’t going to work, but if you get enough good ones, then that’s what pays the bills,” Ast says.  FG

Alisa Raty is a freelance writer based in Arimo, Idaho.

PHOTO 1: Ast Hay Company loads a van in Oregon for delivery to California. 

PHOTO 2: Don Ast’s daughter, Susan Ast Schrock; Don Ast; and Ast’s granddaughter, Sara Schrock, help with the business at their booth at the World Ag Expo in California. Photos courtesy of Don Ast.