Ready, Set, Hay! part 3

Ryegrass harvest is still going on. Hopefully, I'll be finishing up by the end of day Tuesday. Honestly, I don't have much choice. If the rain comes in on Wednesday as predicted, and persists for several days as predicted... it'll be bad if I'm not finished by then. Like most farming ventures, forage harvest is all about timing. Ideally, we would like to harvest all of the forage in the vegetative state. Once the grass enters the reproductive state (starts to produce a seed head), the quality starts to deteriorate. Obviously, this isn't a perfect world, and I can't be everywhere at once. My strategy is to start cutting early (a week or so before the grass starts to produce seedheads), and finish before the crop has gone into complete reproductive phase. Usually, that strategy works well. The first half of our harvest was extremely high quality. A brief mechanical setback, A brief time of being stuck in the mud, and several rain events have put us about a week behind when I wanted to be finished. This last field that I am harvesting now has gone fully reproductive. I am racing the clock against the plant and the incoming weather. So, what does this mean for the crop? The last portion will not be of as good quality, but it's not bad. I'd say it's still better than most forage harvested in our area. There will be more quantity, but the protein level will be a little lower. This is when it becomes handy that we are feeding several different types of livestock. Dairy cows have the highest nutritional demand, so they will get the best forage we have available. Beef cattle nutritional needs are not nearly as high, so they will do well on the late-harvested ryegrass. We will also plant some summer annuals for additional stored forage. Taking the optimistic tone as farmers so often do... I think the summer crop could be great for us this year.