Hot News

6.10.2008

By Jane W. Graham
AFP Correspondent

Livestock and forage producers across the state of Virginia are looking at a hodgepodge of conditions as pasture and hay grow in response to recent spring rains.
This spring has been very different in most parts of the state from the one in 2007 when drought was developing across the region.
For the most part this year, the hay crop appears to be good, but in at least one area, it is below normal.
The Drought Monitor map of conditions across the state released on June 3 for the previous week showed most of the state is now removed from a drought designation. Some counties in Southwest Virginia remain abnormally dry and some along the North Carolina border were still in moderate drought.
In the eastern part of the state, some people were dealing with too much rain as they re-planted corn that had been lost due to the excess precipitation.
“Lots of hay is being harvested,” Barry Robertson, an Extension agent in Montgomery County, reported. “Early reports estimated average-high yields.”
He said more rain is needed in his area, adding this need for precipitation is now becoming evident in pastures in marginal soils.
The majority of the state’s pastures, 57 percent, were reported in good condition for the week ending June 1 by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
The agency said 15 percent was in excellent condition and only 1 percent was in very poor condition. Three percent was listed as poor and 26 percent as fair.
It reported similar conditions for hay with 57 percent in good condition, and 15 percent in excellent condition. One percent was said to be in very poor condition; 3 percent in poor condition and 23 percent in fair condition. Figures for alfalfa hay were 63 percent in good condition; 15 percent in excellent condition and 22 percent in fair condition. None was shown as very poor or poor.
Reports from agricultural agency people around the state in telephone conversations and written reports and their comments to the NASS show how the conditions were developing as May rolled into June.
Scott Jerrell, an Extension agent in Scott County, reported the driest conditions.
“We’re still dry,” he said. “Most of our first cutting of hay will be short.”
He estimated a deficit of one-fourth to one-third. In a telephone interview, he said conditions are making it look very similar to last year when his county was one of the driest in the state.
Chris Teutsch, a forage researcher at Virginia Tech’s Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Blackstone, said in a recent article that there has been ample rainfall in that area. He reported streams are running and ponds are full.
“However, many of the pastures that were overgrazed last summer and fall have not fully recovered,” he said. “So as we go into the summer you may want to give your stressed pastures a little extra rest to rebuild their root systems and thicken back up.”
While rain is a blessing, he said, it is making it difficult to get the first hay cutting dried and into a bale.
“In many cases, we are tempted to bale before the hay has fully dried down,” he continued. “This can result in heating of bales, loss of forage quality, and in some cases hay fire.”
“There’s been ample rain so far this spring,” still not enough to recharge the ground water and get ponds back to capacity, but enough,” Virginia Tech’s Gordon Groover wrote in his farm management letter.
“So far in the New River Valley, we are behind our normal hay harvest schedules with limited days of clear skies to allow cutting, curing and baling,” he reported.
In Appomattox County Bruce Jones reported to NASS that the hay harvest is in full swing.
“The windy conditions rapidly dried out the soil surface and many farmers are hoping for rain,” he said.
“Hay producers have generally gotten a very good first cutting and are fertilizing hay fields and hoping for continued moisture, Caroline County’s McGann Saphir reported to NASS.
Sam Johnson in Westmoreland County said a lot of hay had been cut by mid-week as it looked like conditions would hold through the weekend. Rockingham County’s David Moore reported that the haymaking is great and the first cutting is about over.
As haymaking continues across the state, farmers and weathermen alike will be watching the sky. The best the National Weather Service has been able to forecast for the next weeks and months is an equal chance of more, normal or less rainfall.