Hay question

[jen judkins]

For those of you in the Northeast (NH, VT, NY)…what is the average yield for horse hay (dry square bales) per acre. Just a general idea. I am considering a larger piece of property and making my own hay is a big goal of mine. Thanks.

[Michel Boulay]

Hi Jen,
I think you have variables here, type of hay, is it well managed, temperature, dry-wet, fertilized….. I googled it just to see what answers I’d get and its just as vague as my reply. The real answer would probably be 25 to 100 bales/acre equaly vague.

But for example I plowed close to an acre some years ago and sowed oats with 70-15-15(timothy,red clover,white clover) undersown. When we hayed that field we got 9 round bales= about 10 square bales = 90 square bales. Today if I would cut it maybe 4 round bales. So there is probably an average I would say 50 to 75 on a reasonable field. I’m not an expert on the subject but from observation doing some hay for the past 12 years mostly round.

That’s my little reply to you, not great help but an idea of what it is. I would say that Lisa Carl’s better half with her degree in pasture management could give you a good answer. Have fun haying.

Mike

[Livewater Farm]

Jen I shoot for an average of 100 hundred bales per acre over 2 3 cuts per year this with annual soil testing and adding soil amendments as indicated. This is all possible using organic practices. When I first bought my present farm we were lucky to get one good cutting. Now 12 years later I can get 3 maybe 4 cuttings and a fall pasturing out of most of my hay fields which produce a mineral balenced forage for my dairy .
Bill

[mitchmaine]

hi jen,
mike got it about right. it shouldn’t take alot of work to get 100 bales (two ton) to the acre. you have to feed it, and you can squeeze a little more, but as a rule, thats what you shoot for in new england. 25 bales wouldn’t be worth the effort and you would could should see the cutter bar from the seat of the mower. old field gets rootbound, and the ph is very acidic, but with a little plowing, and a lot of lime (5-6 tons per acre) you can bring them back around. its the land that needs the eye. not to boney, or swampy, or swaley or steep, but that said, lots of hay has been taken off some pretty hard chance around here. looking araound,eh? good luck there

[Tim Harrigan]

Jen, have you thought about how you plan to manage your hay/pasture ground? By horse hay, do you mean grass/clover or alfalfa/grass? Grass/clover managed well should not need reseeding and you can make hay at first cutting when the spring flush provides more hay than you can pasture, then you can rotate through those pastures by grazing during the rest of the season. Frost seeding or some other method of interseeding can keep a nice balance of grasses and legumes over the long haul and you may never need to till the ground again. That is a huge plus on a hillside.

If you are thinking alfalfa or alfalfa/grass that ramps up the management needs. An advantage is alfalfa will yield better than grass in second and third cutting if it is managed as a hay field. But alfalfa does not hold up well under grazing so reseeding will be needed maybe every 5 years or so. Reseeding of hay fields will be needed as well, alfalfa tends to winterkill. There is a bloat potential with alfalfa with cattle on pasture as well, and alfalfa requires a near neutral pH and your soils are likely acidic so periodic liming will be needed (probably helpful for grass/clover as well). And, alfalfa is a heavy feeder on potassium which affects winter hardiness so you may want to give some thought to how you will meet the nutrient needs.

I have typical yields in mind for Michigan but have no idea what you can expect in NH. Of course, local knowledge is great, UNH probably has a forage extension specialist and extension educators will have a good sense. Also, the USDA Agricultural Statistics Service publishes average crop yields as well, you should be able to find that on the web.

I checked the Ag Stat Service, average NH hay yield in 2011 was 2 tons/acre.

[bendube]

In VT, on silt-loam bottomland, we get somewhere between .75 (for our poorest ground) and 1.75 (on our richest ground) tons per acre in the first cut, which averages out to around 2 tons/acre for 2 cuts. When we get to liming the poorer ground this fall, I’m sure we’re going to see those low end yields pop up. It sounds like a little less than 2 tons is a safe number to start with for shopping around.

I second everyone’s comments on the importance of management, and soil type plays in as well. If you’re considering a specific piece of land, Web Soil Survey could be a useful tool. Web soil survey will give you the “potential” productivity for a couple different crops for all of the soil types on your prospective farm. Though to the Soil Service, “potential” productivity is how much you could get with chemical fertilizers, so you’d want to round down quite a bit from their estimates.

Happy hunting, happy haying!

[Anonymous]

We were getting about 100 bales per acre per cutting on fields that we were harvesting a first and third cutting with sheep. They were generally light bales though 35-40 pound bales. Horses can also dig through the snow and graze through the winter to offset your hay demands if u plan accordingly.

Jared

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