At the end of the course, the professor asked for a critique from the class members of the operation of the university’s small swine production facility.
It was just big enough to give class members some hands-on experience to make the course more than a classroom exercise.
As he reviewed the comments, questions and suggestions from class members, the professor made a very honest statement. “Sometimes,” he said, “We all know to do better than we actually do.”
Yes, a couple of comments from the class had embarrassed him, as he was both the department chairman and the one directly in charge of the swine project
. I don’t know if the suggested changes were made, but at least this fellow was not so arrogant as to try to blow off legitimate points of the critique.
Dave Miller, one of the long-time hay growers of the Royal Slope area of central Washington State, sometimes talks about 5 percent hay.
“That’s the kind of hay you wish you had after putting up any of the other 95 percent.” He went on, “It’s only about 5 percent of the time that you can get the time, water, scheduling, weather, machinery malfunctions and the dews to all line up together.”
Somewhere along the line someone said to me that it’s better to aim for the moon and miss than to aim for a pile of cow manure and hit it.
Years back in Idaho, I ended up farther from home than usual looking for hay. I found some fairly nice alfalfa hay and was able to put a deal together with the grower.
I had intentions of going back the next season and being able to market the full production from this hay ranch. When I came back as first cutting was being harvested, I realized that the hay I found the previous winter had been put up with quality completely by accident.
It was early afternoon, and the balers were in the field baling at capacity. A dust and hay-leaf cloud followed each baler.
Upon examining the finished product, I found that the hay was being baled too dry and too wet at the same time. The majority of the leaves were being broken off the stems and left in the field.
The stems themselves were too wet with stem moisture, resulting in bales that were sure to turn brown or moldy.
After trying my best to get the ranch to let the stem moisture cure out before baling, and then bale with some dew to preserve the leaves of the alfalfa, I gave up and left.
This was desert country. The forecast was for clear weather for three weeks.
They were not hurrying to get the hay out of the fields because it was going to rain that night. They just did not understand what they were doing. They had no idea how they had made the hay I liked from the previous year – it was the classic example of quality by accident.
Another quality disaster in the past from southern Idaho was when large acreages of land was being taken out of sagebrush and planted into potatoes in the 1970s and early 1980s. After the first few years, the new potato ground needed to be rotated to another crop, and alfalfa was the choice.
Some of the potato growers had a background in alfalfa hay production, but most did not. Custom operators appeared on the scene, and the circus began. In the high desert, the hay was cut and then baled three to six days later, depending on the drying conditions.
Most of the custom operators took on so much acreage that they had no choice but to keep baling hay, even if a dry wind blew all night and left the hay tinder-box dry.
One of the growers who understood alfalfa hay arrived on the scene early one morning to find that his custom harvesting crew had baled all night in too-dry conditions. He fired them on the spot. “But we have to bale every night to keep up,” was the excuse.
The grower countered that they had just turned early-cut, high-test dairy alfalfa into junk feeder hay.
There are times custom operators are available who will do a quality harvesting job, and there are times they are not. This is a consideration to make when looking at the purchase of haying machinery.
This is a heartbreaker for someone just getting into the hay-growing business. If custom operators are not willing to take the time to make your hay top-quality, there is another option.
That is to sell it either standing or in the windrow. This option usually is less lucrative than having a whole stack of super-premium hay to sell, but you do not take the risk of too-dry baling conditions or of a rainstorm reducing the quality of your hay. In most areas, this option is available either with or without a “rain” clause.
Rain insurance is also available, at least in central Washington State. This cuts down on the sales of Tums and Rolaids during the hay-making time of the year.
In “aiming for the moon” as to hay quality, it helps to understand what the markets are for premium hay of the kind you grow. This can be a moving target, and it can be a case of “in the eye of the beholder.”
If the top-dollar hay in your area goes to a dairy, a feed store, an exporter or to a feedlot, ask those people what they want. It may surprise you to learn that with corn and soybean prices going up, feedlot operators will gladly pay more for hay higher in protein than hay that is just a roughage filler. To hit a target, you need to know where the target is and its distance from you.
Every person I have ever known who is involved in any way with buying hay will take the time to answer one question from any hay grower.
That question is, “What do I need to do to make my hay worth more money?” Then listen to the answers, don’t make excuses, don’t get mad and try not to argue too much.
My answers to the above question over the years have been some of these:
• “Your hay needs to be more uniform. In the same stack, you have premium and feeder hay and everything in between.”
• “When you think your hay is ready to bale, go fishing for a day or two instead. You are baling it with too much stem moisture.”
• “You need to cut it by the maturity of the plant and not by the number of days since the last cutting. If the weather is 105 degrees and windy, the alfalfa will mature faster than in cool weather.”
• “You need to watch the dew moisture closer at baling so you get the leaves inside the bale – and even better, all still attached to the stem. If the stems are dry, you can bale at a higher total moisture than if you are trying to bale with stem moisture.”
• “You need to improve your stack yards or hay barns. Elevate the base of the stack area and cover it with coarse drain rock. That will keep most of the bottom bales dry most of the time. Hay trucks need to be able to get in and out of your hay storage area most of the year.”
I fully realize that neither you nor I can control the weather. I fully realize there are times when you must bale too wet or too dry. I hope you don’t ever need to bale too wet and too dry at the same time; if you do, fire insurance would be a better buy than rain insurance.
There is a reason why the “5 percent” hay is only that small a percentage of all production. I have a gut feeling that if more growers understood what it took to make the “5 percent” hay, there could easily be more of it. FG
