How’s your grass?

[Texas G@l]

Put out f

what local sale do you use?

Decatur

 

[TCRanch]

Woohoo!!! Got 35 bales from a 20 acre pasture of native grass. It's the pasture where we wean the calves and don't usually have it baled, but the yield on the other fields (brome) was so low, we had no choice.

 

[DNelson]

our pastures are toast. my hay field produced 25% of last year and that wasn't the best year. We had an inch of rain a month ago, and before that sprinkle of 1/10 of an inch. I have a partial semi load left over from last year so hopefully I can purchase a few bales to get me thru until green up 2024. My neighbors aren't so lucky. I gave my meadow hay field to my neighbor but that even produced less than 50 % of last year. third year of this BS and its getting on my nerves. I'll buy hay to keep the cows fed, but I'm a small operator compared to my neighbors and they have the same problems.

 

[DNelson]

It would take a Gulf tropical storm or hurricane at this point, and it would have to be a slow mover to do any real good.
A Pacific storm, coming out of Northern Mexico and moving North East would work too, since their wind has mostly subsided by the time they reach Texas. That is a pretty rare event tho.

our rains, if I can call it that, have been from the northwest out of Canada down thru N Dakota to us in Minnesota. What the H happened to the rains and storms coming from the south and southwest into Minnesota? That was the norm for ever. The Gulf of Mexico would send the weather after the tropical storms and hurricanes north to the plains.

 

[GoWyo]

This year it was transition from La Nina to El Nino. There was a low pressure system stuck in the Gulf of Alaska from first of May til a week or two ago. Sent all the rain to Great Basin, Rockies and Front Range and left the middle dry and Canada pretty dry as well. The low seems to have broken and we are in monsoon pattern. Hope the Midwest and corn belt gets some rain.

 

[BFE]

This year it was transition from La Nina to El Nino. There was a low pressure system stuck in the Gulf of Alaska from first of May til a week or two ago. Sent all the rain to Great Basin, Rockies and Front Range and left the middle dry and Canada pretty dry as well. The low seems to have broken and we are in monsoon pattern. Hope the Midwest and corn belt gets some rain.

We caught a pop up thunderstorm the other day. .7-1.5" within a mile of each other. It hit everything we have but don't have to go far in any direction and they got nothing. We're fortunate to have had just enough so far to keep the crops looking good. Not everyone is so fortunate. It's pretty dry across Illinois in general.

 

[crossbreed]

Decatur

Decatur indeed is the largest sale in the area. I think consistent out sales Gainesville

 

[gman4691]

Fed the last 3 bales of last year's hay today with a couple of bags of cubes…this guy better show up with some hay next week…was supposed to be here tomorrow but put me back a week…slight chance of rain Aug. 7-9…as for this coming week, nothing but over 100 degrees every day with no rain in the forecast…for me, this is worse than last year & last July-August was pretty rough

 

[MurraysMutts]

12 ½ hrs on the tractor today. Just raking...
The guys put up over 800 bales yesterday. I imagine about the same today.
My crabgrass....
Hoping for 3 bale/acre

 

[MurraysMutts]

68" bales....
We will see how many I get off 70 acres

 

[MurraysMutts]

177 bales.
I call em 5x5 ½ plus!

That'll do pig. That'll do

 

[DNelson]

we got 2 inches of rain yesterday and overnight! hopefully we are getting into a new trend and pastures will green up.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

we got 2 inches of rain yesterday and overnight! hopefully we are getting into a new trend and pastures will green up.

I hope that rain was spread over several hours, although you said 'yesterday and overnight' which indicates it was. If the ground was too dry and you got all that rain inside a couple hours only, most of it would have gone somewhere else rather into the soil. Its instances like this where not eating the grass into the dirt pays off and you actually capture a considerably larger amount of this much needed rainfall than if you slicked the pasture off.

 

[slpatterson]

We've had plenty of rain this summer people already cutting hay.

 

[DNelson]

I hope that rain was spread over several hours, although you said 'yesterday and overnight' which indicates it was. If the ground was too dry and you got all that rain inside a couple hours only, most of it would have gone somewhere else rather into the soil. Its instances like this where not eating the grass into the dirt pays off and you actually capture a considerably larger amount of this much needed rainfall than if you slicked the pasture off.

yes, the rain was spread over the day and night with times of no rain. very little run off from what I can see and was great having a couple mud puddles in the driveway! The ground was bone dry so it will be interesting to see the depth that the moisture perked to.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

yes, the rain was spread over the day and night with times of no rain. very little run off from what I can see and was great having a couple mud puddles in the driveway! The ground was bone dry so it will be interesting to see the depth that the moisture perked to.

Go grab your shovel! Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[DNelson]

Go grab your shovel! Inquiring minds want to know!

dug down 12 inches in the hay field where runoff would be unlikely, and dirt would clump when pressed! at 12 inches there are rocks, sand and clay mix too. sand would clump so it looks like a good bit of root zone moisture.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Wonderful!

 

[gman4691]

I had the same situation...2 pastures of thick rye grass that I would have liked to have had baled...too wet. I just let the cows eat one pasture and mowed the other. Temps are cooler than usual so the bermuda grass is a little slow...but growing. They say this summer will be a bit cooler here but the northeast will be warmer (transition year between El Nino and La Nina is how it was explained to me - but I'm no meteorologist). Chance of a little more rain today. Still working on the trees that went down in the recent storms...all on fences, of course - that will be ongoing for awhile. The storms laid most of rye grass down. Hoping to spray week after next and get chicken litter applied to hay pastures when the guy can get it done. Then, some rain will be a welcome thing. Just another springtime in deep east Texas.

"They say this summer will be a bit cooler here..." - they were wrong

 

[1982vett]

On day 54 without a drop of rain...