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Hay & Forage Grower
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Rick Mooney, Editor, eHay Weekly, at
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or
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Managing Editor, fholin@hayandforage.com
For specific information from past issues of eHay Weekly and
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A shrinking U.S. horse population is playing a role in the
lackluster horse hay sales reported by hay growers and dealers in many
parts of the country during 2009. But other factors are likely having a
bigger impact, says Anne Rodiek, an equine specialist with California
State University, Fresno.
“A decline in horse numbers has no doubt contributed to a downturn in
horse hay sales,” says Rodiek. “But the price of hay in last
year’s hay market was likely the biggest cause of the downturn in
horse numbers. More than one person has cited last year’s hay price as
the last straw that led horse businesses to close their doors and
convinced horse owners to either get rid of a horse or forego purchasing
or raising another one.”
The severe downturn in the general economy has also been a factor. Along
with buying less hay, many horse owners have made changes in the way
they feed their animals. “(They’re) trying to stretch the hay they
do buy farther,” says Rodiek. “They’re feeding more
conservatively, by the flake instead of the bale, and avoiding any
overfeeding. Uneaten hay is no longer allowed to contribute to bedding
or to fill in muddy places in fields or paddocks.”
Other steps horse owners are taking to cut feed costs include buying
bagged forage and/or feeding pellets out of a feeder or pail.
“There’s less shrink than when feeding broken bales,” notes
Rodiek. Some horses are being fed lawn clippings or are being shipped
from urban areas to more rural settings where pasture or volunteer grass
can be used for feed.
Long-term, Rodiek is optimistic about the future of the horse and hay
industries in her part of the country. “Horses have to eat, and there
are few alternatives to hay in the arid Western states,” she says.
“People own horses because they like them and often will sacrifice
many other luxuries before the horse. Even a moderate return to
prosperity, coupled with reasonable hay prices, will likely cause these
industries to rebound.”
Editor’s Note: Rodiek was one of the speakers at last week’s
Western Alfalfa
and Forage Symposium in Reno, NV.
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performance in a package that offers exceptional value or a tractor that
gives you the latest electronic conveniences and push button simplicity,
the new T6000 Series tractors from New Holland are built for you. T6000
tractors are a natural choice for haying operations and heavy loader
work. To learn more, see your local New Holland dealer or call
1-888-290-7377. www.newholland.com/na
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The quality-tested hay auction season got off to a bumpy start at
the Dodge County Forage Council’s (DCFC) first sale of the year in
Beaver Dam, WI, last Tuesday. “We had a number of buyers on hand, but
zero sellers,” reports Matt Hanson, crops and soils agent for
University of Wisconsin Extension-Dodge County.
An overall shortage of hay in the area was likely the major factor
keeping sellers away from the auction, says Hanson. “It was a
challenging summer for putting up hay here. We had cool temperatures
mixed in with dry weather for most of the season. Tonnage was down
across the board, and that has us in a tight inventory situation. I’ve
been getting a lot of calls from people looking for hay.”
Hanson also suspects some sellers may have bypassed the auction,
anticipating higher prices later in the winter. “With supplies so
short, people might be thinking they’ll hold off on selling now and
try to get a premium price in February or March.”
Good weather on auction day may have also played a role. “It was a
downright beautiful fall day for this time of year, and I suspect a lot
of people were out in the field wrapping up their corn harvest and fall
tillage,” says Hanson. “It was frustrating, but also
understandable.”
The next tested auction in Beaver Dam is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 15.
Followup DCFC auctions are scheduled for the first and third Tuesdays of
the month through the first week of April. Sales are held at the Beaver
Dam Auction Market. Hanson encourages hay sellers interested in
participating in upcoming auctions to call him at 920-386-3790. He
advises potential buyers and sellers to check the DCFC Web site for auction updates.
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LocalEquineServices.com, a
Web site geared toward helping horse owners find hay, bedding material
and other products within specific geographic locations, is offering hay
sellers a free listing on the site for all of 2010. To take advantage of
the offer, sign up by Dec. 31.
Up to this point, sellers have paid $40 for a one-year listing on the
site. “This has been a tough year for everyone connected with the
horse industry,” says site founder Jenn Reinford of Boyertown, PA. She
notes that hay sellers already using the site will also list for free
throughout 2010. “Especially now, no one has a red cent to spare. This
seems like a good way to get more people using the site.”
A radius-search function is the key feature of the site. A potential
buyer enters his zip code, then selects a mileage radius of where he’d
like to conduct the search. The search engine almost instantly generates
a printable list of sellers within the radius. “There are lots of
Internet sites for buying and selling hay,” says Reinford. “But
buyers get tired of searching through list after list of data trying to
find exactly what they want in a specific area. With this site, they do
a few keystrokes and within seconds they have the information they’re
looking for.”
Along with a description of the product, a seller can use the listing to
create a link to his or her own Web site and email. The seller can also
track the number of hits generated by the listing.
Reinford, a senior solutions engineer with an office printing and
document management company, launched the site in her spare time in 2006
under the name LocalHayPrices.com. She changed the name to
LocalEquineServices.com last year to reflect the fact that a wide range
of other products and services of interest to horse owners are also
listed on the site.
To contact Reinford, call 610-906-6235 or email jenn@localequineservices.com.
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 Know where to find the best alfalfa? Isn’t it obvious?
Syngenta alfalfa offers top yield, high forage quality and exceptional
persistence. Plus all the varieties you need, available through your
Garst seed advisor, Golden Harvest dealer or NK retailer. Contact them
today to place your order.
The Syngenta logo is a trademark of a Syngenta Group
Company.
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With the pressures of the growing season behind you, now is a good
to time to do a year-end checkup on the farm business. Parman Green,
University of Missouri Extension ag business management specialist,
recommends the following steps:
- Bring recordkeeping for the business up to date.
- Make two lists to use with your year-to-date profit-and-loss
report. One list will detail income and expenses that will definitely be
received or paid prior to year-end. The second list will cover income
and expenses that could be received or paid prior to the end of the
year.
- Analyze any non-recurring or abnormally large anticipated receipts
or expenditures for next year. Questions to ask: Are you planning to
carry over an unusually large quantity of grain or livestock? Are you
planning to incur any unusually large expenditures for conservation
practices, fencing, lime, business expansion, etc.?
- Review Social Security management strategies for yourself and your
spouse. Do you both have sufficient quarters of earnings during the last
10 years to qualify for disability benefits?
- Complete all desired 2009 gift transfers before year’s end. The
annual gift exclusion ($13,000 per recipient) continues to be one of the
most effective and efficient estate planning tools. Be sure to complete
all 2009 gift transfers before the end of the year.
- Review and make sure your income, risk, business, retirement and
estate management goals and objectives are all being addressed in a
coordinated fashion.
- Meet with your tax return preparer before Dec. 31 to make sure
everyone is on the same page. Doing so will help avoid costly surprises
and ensure sufficient time is available to evaluate alternative
strategies.
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“Every day (dairy farmers) are losing money. Presently,
they’re drawing on bank accounts, they’re eroding their equity and
building up extremely large debts. Some of them won’t survive.”
– Milton, PA, dairy producer Robert Pardoe, describing how slumping
milk prices impact local milk producers. Source: Milton
Standard-Journal.
“I call it the tree hugger special. It’s just hay and wood, and
it’s very cool to me.” – Artist Pat Fallier, commenting on a
hay bale house he’s building near Andover, KS. The hay bales are used
for insulation. Source:
Kwch.com.
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 New from National Alfalfa &
Forage Alliance and Hay & Forage Grower
The Fall Dormancy & Pest Resistance Ratings for Alfalfa Varieties
2010 Edition is now available in print and online. National Alfalfa
& Forage Alliance produced and Hay & Forage Grower published the
2010 Varieties Guide. The 2010 Varieties Guide is well-regarded within
the alfalfa seed industry as the most accurate listing of alfalfa
varieties ratings available. Click here for the
2010 Alfalfa Varieties Guide.
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Nevada
Members of Nevada Hay Growers Inc. cooperative got hit with a double
whammy in 2009. Not only did poor growing weather on both ends of the
season crimp yields for many of the co-op’s 100 members, a slumping
dairy economy translated into a dramatic drop-off in demand for
high-quality alfalfa hay, the co-op’s No. 1-selling product.
Net result: The co-op, based in Yerington, NV, has seen a steep decline
in sales. “Our annual sales are usually around 100,000/tons,” says
sales manager Jon Hill. He notes that, along with alfalfa, members also
produce grass and grain hay. “This year we could be as much as 20,000
tons below that. It was definitely a tough year for us, just like it was
a tough year for a lot of other industries.”
Slack demand from dairy customers also translated into a major price
downturn. Hill notes that top-quality alfalfa hay (180 RFV and up) in
the area is currently selling for around $130/ton at the stack. That’s
down around $100/ton from last year’s high.
On the upside, Hill believes the stage could be set for a price upswing
this winter. “Milk prices have been improving over the last couple of
months, and dairy producers have started buying again. Also, we’re
really short on good milk-cow hay. We just didn’t have a lot of that
super, candy-looking stuff put up this year. That should help prices as
we go along, too.”
To contact Hill, call 775-221-3286 or email jonh@hotmail.com.
South Dakota
After an unusually wet fall, things are finally starting to dry out in
northeastern South Dakota, reports Tyler Melroe, Extension livestock
educator in Marshall County. “The rain started in late September, then
just kept coming all through October. We had very few days of sunshine
for the entire month. Our November weather was just great. But the
ground is still pretty saturated in many places.”
The extended period of wet conditions turned many farm and ranch yards
into muddy messes, making it difficult to deliver hay, silage and grain
for winter storage. “Getting a crop harvested and out of the field was
hard enough,” says Melroe. “Getting it into the yard was all but
impossible in many cases. People are just starting to bring in their hay
from the fields. But a lot of that work will be delayed because
they’re more concerned about getting their grain crops harvested.”
Overall, he says, 2009 was a good year for growing hay in the area.
“We had great weather for producing yields. We had plenty of moisture
and a lot of cool weather that was good for our cool-season grasses and,
to some extent, our alfalfa. There are some questions about quality,
though. A lot of the hay that was put up had some sort of rain on it
during harvesting.”
To contact Melroe, call 605-448-5171 or email tyler.melroe@sdstate.edu.
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The Midwest Forage Association (MFA), Wisconsin Custom Operators
and Professional Nutrient Applicators will hold their joint symposium
and annual meeting at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells on Jan.
26-27.
Featured will be more than 30 educational sessions offered in a
concurrent-session format. Financing in 2010, high-forage diets, the
Wisconsin Alfalfa Yield and Persistence Project, an MFA research update
and a session on field efficiency-cost effectiveness of harvesting
forage are among presentation topics.
For details, see MFA’s Event
Schedule.
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Dec. 9 -- 13th Annual University Of Wisconsin Arlington Dairy
Day, Arlington Agricultural Research Station. Registration is
$25/person through Nov. 25, then $35/person. For details, call
608-263-3308.
Dec. 10 -- 2009 Alabama Forage And Grassland Conference,
University of West Alabama, Livingston. Contact Don Ball at
334-844-5491 or dball@aces.edu.
Dec. 13-16 -- Fourth National Conference On Grazing Lands, Reno,
NV. Presented by the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative. Visit www.glci.org.
Dec. 15 -- Mid-Missouri Grazing Conference, Boone County
Fairgrounds, Columbia. For more information, contact Ed Gillmore or
Peggy Lemons at 573-893-5188, ext. 3.
Jan. 13-14 -- Washington State Hay Growers Association Annual
Convention And Trade Show, Three Rivers Convention Center,
Kennewick. Details at www.wa-hay.org/convention.
Jan. 14-15 -- 2010 New Mexico Hay And Forage Conference, Ruidoso
Convention Center, Ruidoso. Details at www.nmhay.com or call 575-626-5677.
Jan. 26-27 -- Midwest Forage Association, Wisconsin Custom Operators
and Professional Nutrient Applicators Symposium And Annual Meetings,
Chula Vista Resort, Wisconsin Dells, WI. For details, visit the Midwest Forage
Association Event Schedule.
Jan 25-28 – Virginia Forage And Grassland Council’s Winter
Conferences at four locations. Jan. 25 – Brandy Station
Fire Hall, Brandy Station; Jan. 26 – Mrs. Rowe’s Country
Buffet, Mt. Crawford; Jan. 27 – Southern Piedmont Ag Research
and Extension Center, Blackstone; Jan. 28 – Wytheville Meeting
Center, Wytheville. Contact Margaret Kenney at 434-292-5331 or download
the brochure here.
Jan. 28-29 -- North Central Ohio Dairy Grazing Conference,
Buckeye Event Center, Dalton. Contact the Small Farm Institute. Download
the brochure here.
Feb. 2-3 -- 2010 Mid-America Alfalfa Expo, Buffalo County
Fairgrounds, Kearney, NE. For details, visit www.alfalfaexpo.com, call Barb
Kinnan at 800-743-1649 or email her at nebalf@cozadtel.net.
Feb 8-12 -- Minnesota Forage Days, held at various locations
throughout the state. Call 651-484-3888 or visit the University of Minnesota
forage Web site for specific locations, dates and times.
Feb. 16-17 -- Idaho Hay And Forage Conference, Best Western
Burley Inn, Burley. Contact Glenn Shewmaker at 208-736-3608 or gshew@uidaho.edu.
Feb. 18-20 -- 2010 Wisconsin Grazing Conference, Hotel Mead,
Wisconsin Rapids. Visit www.grassworks.org or contact
Heather Flashinski at 715-289-4896 or grassheather@hotmail.com.
April 8-9 -- Hay Production School, Spence Field, Moultrie, GA.
Details at www.georgiaforages.com.
June 21-23 -- American Forage And Grassland Council Annual
Conference, University Plaza Hotel, Springfield, MO. Details at the
AFGC Web site.
Sept. 5-7 -- National Hay Association Annual Meeting, Griffin
Gate Marriott Resort, Lexington, KY. Watch for details on the NHA Web site.
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