Right machinery and experience critical this hay season

Having the machinery, equipment, shedding and experience to cut crops for hay originally intended for grain is going to be paramount this year, hay producers were told.

Landmark Elmore branch manager and agronomist, Greg Toomey, said many of the eastern seaboard cereal crops would be earmarked for hay through lack of rain or frost.

He said growers are currently on the cusp of making harvesting decisions.

Speaking at the inaugural 2018 AFIA Fodder Festival, Toomey said hay production reduces in-crop weed burden and input costs through reduced spend on herbicides.

It also gives rotational and timing of sowing flexibility, the ability to use disc seeders, a disease break for take-all, an early income for growers and greater profitability in the dry years.

Toomey said there is more stored soil moisture after hay than following a grain crop.

“Many weeds can be removed quite successfully between in-crop sprays and the survivors being cut and carted away.

“Growers can sow into stubbles without any soil disturbance or worries about residual straw.

“Disc seeders can be used in systems with low weed burdens. In any one year, between 60-80 per cent of ryegrass will germinate - a couple of years of hay production can get it back down to a more manageable level.”

According to West Australian research, only five to 10 per cent of ryegrass has a viable seed at hay cutting time.

Toomey said up to 90 per cent control of ryegrass could be achieved by cutting hay and spraying afterwards to prevent regrowth setting seed.

“Many weeds have responded to early knockdowns by germinating much later – in the Mallee, brome grass will not germinate on the break as the early germinators were sprayed with glyphosate or paraquat,” he said.

“Hay has helped remove those weeds starting to change by selection and is a huge resistance management tool by cutting off plants that have got through any herbicide.

“Those plants cannot enter the seed bank and spread their resistance genes into the population.”

Toomey added this year would see judicious cutting of crops destined for grain production.

“The weedy ones will be cut for hay if this season continues on a dry trajectory,” he said.

“Generally, hay has been a profitable crop for my growers most years. After the 2016 season when growers produced so much hay they never thought they would see the back of it, all of those great walls of hay have gone.”

Lallemand Animal Nutrition technical services manager, David Lewis, said dry cloddy paddocks and dust would add to the ash levels in canola and cereal hay feed quality this year.

Lewis said low cutting heights of 2cm could add up to 20 times more bad bacteria from the soil to the silage.

“Grass and cereal crops start to deteriorate as soon as they are mown and placed in a windrow,” he said.

“How quickly we get it from a standing plant to compacted in the absence of oxygen is how much nutrients we will conserve.

“If we get this wrong, high quality feed can be quickly turned into poor quality.”

Lewis said one in four bales could be lost to spoilage if there was lower quality feed in the outside 600mm layer of a round bale.

He said an eight per cent loss in feed quality could be caused by a 3mm hole in the plastic film.

This rises to a 15 per cent loss for 10 holes of 3mm in size or 32 per cent for a 24mm hole left unpatched.