The 2019 growing season did not start out well.
The 2018 beautiful alfalfa seeding is devastated. We could’ve planted corn, but decided to plant annual Italian rye grass.
If you look closely on picture #2, you can see the rye grass coming up. It’s June 1st 2019 and normally we are cutting 1st crop at this time. We had initially decided to plant corn on this field, the manure was already applied at 8,000 gal/acre. But we changed our mind and decided to plant the rye grass.
You can tell by picture #3 that what is left of the alfalfa does not like water. The geese are loving it. The center pivot is useless, but the rye grass is coming.
After harvesting the first crop off this field, Haymaker Special fertilizer was applied (300 lb./acre of Haymaker Special /3N – 0P – 50Potash -3.5Sulfur – .35Boron).
On the left is field that was reseeded, compared to the right which was not reseeded in rye grass. The rye grass on the left, the entire field of 140acres yielded approximately 3.5 ton/acre at about 50 % moisture – according to the harvest lab on our chopper.
Picture#6 – Equipment used for planting rye grass.
Picture #7
July 6th 2019. This is the 2nd cutting that yielded 3.5 ton. I will show all of the yields on the forage analysis later. But there was obviously some sort of synergy going on here because it no longer looks like a winterkill field.
Manure was applied after the 2nd cutting at 5,000 gal/acre.
After the 3rd crop was taken off we applied the last round of Haymaker Special fertilizer.
4th Crop – You can see that the grass is more dominate as the year progresses.
This is the 5th crop, we harvested it in the beginning of November 2019.
Tons of 50% Moisture Haylage
Crop | yield | acres |
1st | 202.2 | 136 |
2nd | 481.6 | 136 |
3rd | 396.8 | 136 |
4th | 271.9 | 127 |
5th | 155.3 | 127 |
11.31 T / acre |