05/18/05 Rains good for grains, bad for hay

05/18/05 Rains good for grains, bad for hay

Washington Ag May 18, 2005 While the rains of May have been welcomed by cereal grain growers in the state, its is not what alfalfa producers making their first cutting of hay want to see. Tim Woodard with Washington State University Extension in Franklin County estimates about 35 percent of the hay was down there when it rained with only a small portion baled. Woodard: "If it was a light rain and it was a short duration then what he will do is rake it and help it dry out. So it will have some rain damage but it really takes a lot of rain like a two inch rain or something to take the nutrients out of it. One of the problems is, is that if it keeps raining and they can't get that hay up off the ground then the growth from the next crop starts growing through the windrows. That can not only hurt their quality of the hay down on the ground they can't get picked up but it also affects their yield a little bit on their next cut because it is just sitting there." Hay producers suffered quality losses from rains last year. Woodard says that's actually made for a good hay market this year, plus the fact California has had rain on its first two cuttings and dairies there have come to the Columbia Basin for hay. Then there is the drought which will reduce yields on dryland production. I'm Bob Hoff.
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