We are in the middle of the second wave of hay cutting. The crop pictured above is a summer annual Sudan Grass. We no-tilled it this spring behind some ryegrass. Afternoon thundershowers eventually made it a pretty decent crop, but not great. The day I planted, it was supposed to rain that evening. Unfortunately, it didn't and then didn't get a drop of rain for 19 days. The spots with any subsurface moisture germinated early, while the majority waited in dry dirt for almost 3 weeks. That wait caused uneven growth and poor germination. Sudangrass has a wide flat leaf, is pretty drought-tolerant, and is high in energy. We baled this crop wet and wrapped the bales in plastic to create hay silage (basically pickling). This will preserve the nutrients until we are ready to feed.
For regular readers, this is not the field we were tracking the cost on. That farm will be harvested in the next week or so. I should have an update then. Unlike the field we just cut, the farm we are tracking got a nice rain just after planting. Its looking great.
