Hay season will soon be upon us; how will your forage perform? This question is on the mind of growers who raise, feed and sell this precious commodity.

 With spring just around the corner, you may be starting to think about your forage plans for your operation. Whether you are ready to put your cows out on pasture or begin a new harvest of haylage, it’s important to know what you are feeding your animals.

As a consultant at a commercial testing laboratory, this is one of the most common questions I receive from producers looking at their forage report.

Profit margins could be a challenge in 2022 as feed prices remain high, with premium-quality alfalfa hay over $240 a ton, shelled corn approaching $6 a bushel and soybean meal over $370 a ton. One solution is if you have adequate forage amounts and quality.

Many farmers have harvested alfalfa and then found it did not have the expected relative forage quality (RFQ). A new forage analysis, leaf percentage, may help determine the cause of the problem.

Farmers love what they do, and whether they realize it or not, each one lives for the harvest – not just crop farmers with grain harvests but livestock owners marketing animals, along with dairy farms with pounds of milk sent to the creamery.

While weather is a constant challenge to maintaining forage supply, producers can control other threats to having enough feed.