How’s your grass?

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Things seem to have turned a corner here. We got almost 4 inches of rain a couple weeks ago and some sun and heat. The grass has shot up, added bulk, and headed out. I cut the alfalfa this week. Had trouble drying the alfalfa though so it was chopped for silage.

More rain tonight and then next week looks good right now for grass hay mowing. It's not going to have the volume, but should be good quality. I could wait a week or two to let the timothy head out and get more bulk. I'll probably mow. Hay in the barn makes me happy.
 
Got another 5 inches of rain over the past 3 days. Sun popped out yesterday around noon and temp hit the mid 80's in no time. Air had a distinct sour smell to it last night.
 
Everything is two weeks behind here. Had a hard freeze on April 23-24. Got down to about 24 for three hours or so. Had plenty of rain first couple of weeks of April and then dry as bone for the next three. Past week or so has given us about four inches total so we're getting back to where we want. Pastures look pretty poor still even after fertilizer. Last year was hard on things. Hay should get laid down this weekend or next week.
 
These are the same pastures I started a thread about last summer where I ran summer annuals in. We planted a mix of red/white clover, fescue, orchard grass and festulolium this past September. The mix got a slow start in the Fall but has really turned on the past few weeks. Not as much orchard grass as I would like to see but overall these will make nice pastures. Turned some Fall bred replacement heifers into the first pasture this evening and they are happy campers. IMG_3996.jpegIMG_3998.jpeg
 
Locust Dale, how do you like the festulolium? I've thought about sowing some in a few of my thinner pastures, but nobody around here has even heard of it.
 
Hogfarmer10 said:
Locust Dale, how do you like the festulolium? I've thought about sowing some in a few of my thinner pastures, but nobody around here has even heard of it.
Click to expand...
Too early to tell. I will say it germinated VERY well and there is a strong stand of it in comparison to the percentage of the original mix it made up. I think it only made up 10-15% of the original mix but much more of the festulolium is present than orchard grass. Really depends on how it persists.
 
Not much rain here just enough to throw a wrench in stuff. Need to be cutting what little hay we have but while no rain for about a week or so very cool temps, partly/ mostly cloudy skies and roughly 65-80% humidity. Hard to get it to dry like that. What to do, what to do?
 
extension.entm.purdue.edu

Environmental Conditions Affect Time To Safe Hay Baling

Environmental conditions that exist when forages are ready to be harvested influences the amount of hours that it takes to get to a safe baling moisture.
extension.entm.purdue.edu extension.entm.purdue.edu

Found this as I was thinking about my weather issues. First time I had seen a chart on estimated dry times and levels vs. weather conditions.
 
Sad to see those pictures of drought with dried up pastures and ponds. This must be breaking farmers and ranchers out that way.

I hate festololium. We converted some crop ground 3 years back and it had some festololium in the mix. It grows some in spring, goes to seed and then does nothing over summer until fall. I'm going to try to now the seed heads off to see if that improves summer growth.
 

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