What can I plant for hay?
Planting Hay. Use grass or alfalfa to grow hay. Typically, hay is made from either grass or alfalfa. Depending on your needs, plant grass, alfalfa, or a mixture of the 2 for use as hay after growing.
Can we get hay from plant stems?
Hay is made from the entire plant; leaves, stems, flowers, and sometimes immature seeds. The whole plant has a much greater nutritional value than just dried stems. Hay is cut before the seeds have matured.
At what stage the crop is cut for making good hay?
pre-flowering stage
Suitable crops for making hay Grasses and similar fodder crops should be harvested at the pre-flowering stage. At this stage, the crop has maximum nutrients and green matter. After flowering and seeding, grasses contain fewer nutrients.
What crop makes the best hay?
Legume hay is a popular choice for most livestock. It can be made from a wide variety of legumes including clover, vetch, sainfoin, birdsfoot trefoil and of course the “queen of the forages” – alfalfa. Legume hay is known for its high protein and calcium levels, as well being rich in vitamins and minerals.
Do you plant hay every year?
Some fields are always used to grow hay, and don’t require re-planting every year. In other cases, hay is a part of a crop rotation, where farmers plant different crops on the same field in different years. Hayseed can be a mixture of many types of seeds, with alfalfa, clover, and timothy being among the most common.
Is straw the same as hay?
Hay is a crop that is grown and harvested as a feed crop for cattle, horses and other farm animals. Straw on the other hand is a byproduct of a grain crop; in our area it’s usually usually wheat straw that we see. Hay often is made up of a combination of different plants growing in a field or meadow.
How do you make high quality hay?
Here are seven steps to help you produce a quality alfalfa yield:
- Choose an appropriate field.
- Plant the right seed variety.
- Scout regularly.
- Cut alfalfa at the best time.
- Set yourself up for drying success.
- Lean on moisture levels.
- Be smart about bale storage.
How many bales of hay can you get out of an acre?
100 bales
With an average bale weight of around 40 pounds (with our Abbriata small square baler or any of our mini round balers), that’s 100 bales to the acre for a first cutting.
Does hay grow back every year?
Why do they scatter hay bales?
If they are scattered around the field the farmer is just waiting for a convenient time to pick them up and move them. If lined up along the edge of the field they are being stored there. Big round bales can handle being left outside, and even if the outside looks weathered the inside will be good for a year or longer.
Why do farmers stack hay?
Hay must be fully dried when baled and kept dry in storage. If hay is baled while too moist or becomes wet while in storage, there is a significant risk of spontaneous combustion. Hay stored outside must be stacked in such a way that moisture contact is minimal.
Is growing hay profitable?
Brown says using 2019 numbers, it costs about $400 an acre to plant corn on ground that may yield 150 bushels per acre. “If you are getting $125 per ton for quality hay, you are going to see a profit of $51 per ton, or $204 per acre. “The potential is there to make some pretty good money on hay.”
Is it hard to grow hay?
Commercial farms have little difficulty raising hay or sourcing out their needs, but smaller farmers and urban hobbyists can also grow, harvest and bale hay even on a smaller scale. Haying can be challenging, and some farmers simply enjoy that challenge.
Which is better 1st or 2nd cut hay?
First cut hay is grass heavy and doesn’t have a lot of legumes, such as alfalfa or cover. Second cut hay has a finer texture and usually, a greener color and heavier leaves. It is more dense, the leaves are more tender and healthier, especially in protein.
What kind of hay can horses not eat?
Oat hay has thick tougher stalks that some horses will not eat. Oat hay tends to be higher in nitrates and also high in sugar (NSC), so this hay is not an option for insulin resistant horses. Here’s a comparison chart so you can see the differences between alfalfa hay, timothy (grass) hay and oat hay.
How many 4×5 round bales of hay per acre?
In general, you can get as much as 5 large rounded hays that have weigh 1000 lbs. each, per acre on average. Some farmers also give a rough estimate of 100 s??
