Rye grass has done well here the past few weeks but night time temps have remained below 60. Usually when the night time temps start hitting 60+, the bermuda grass starts doing its thing...and we are getting very close to that now.
I don't know where my mind went... but I saw the grass in the foreground and thought, "This guy's been smoking something if he thinks he can cut that in 3 weeks."View attachment 28890
About 3 weeks ago. Plan on cutting in about a week.
Well, those old sayings like, "Make hay while the sun shines." do carry a lot of wisdom.Out of fear or prosperity, baling has started for some here
Yup...some around here are baling their rye grass while it is still looking good. About 1 more week of <60 degrees lows...when it hits 60+ lows, the bermuda grass will start doing its thing. Here's hoping the rains fall timely.Out of fear or prosperity, baling has started for some here
when i see how bad you all in Kansas have it and have for a couple years, I cant even comment on my problems. mine are minimal compared to many others.Grass? Epic drought, going on the 2nd year. Pond in the west 80 is completely dry, just a little left in the other ponds. Stopped putting out bales last week and my poor cows are grubbing whatever they can find but still supplementing with cubes. Praying for rain!!!
Do you have an elk hunting season? Can you get damage permits like we do here in Va for the deer????The last two months have seen temperatures between 5 and 10 degrees below normal. The grass is way behind where it should normally be now, but we are running out of hay so the cows will go out on grass in a couple days anyway. It has rained or snowed almost every day since mid February and the sun has only peaked out a few times, which doesn't help to raise the temperature or encourage the grass to grow. I should be happy after the drought we have experienced over the last years, but that drought helped to damage the roots of the grasses, so the mud is worse than I've ever seen it. We had some sunshine and temperatures in the 60's for the last two days and I started to feel encouraged that maybe we might start growing some grass. We drove the RTV out into one of the lower pastures to check grass growth and this is what we saw. I could count over 50 elk in this group. I have been cutting the numbers of cows because of drought, but it looks like we will need to cut even deeper. We lived here almost 30 years before ever seeing an elk on the place, but in 2020 the Archie Creek fire burned 131,580 acres just to the east and that seemed to have moved the elk down onto the ranches in the valley. Now in addition to a healthy deer population we are competing with them for grazing. The temperatures are projected to drop back into the low 30's at night and maybe hit low 50's in the day next week. Very depressing.
We do have an elk season. There is a lottery to get a license. I'm not sure when the season is, but I know we can't hunt them right now. We have a friend who is a Hunting and Fishing Guide and he pays us to hunt Turkey and Deer. He knows the elk are here now, but they come and go from ranch to ranch, so no guarantee they will be in the area when he has a hunter, or that they will win the elk lottery. I believe there are also damage permits available. I imagine our guide will contact us if he wants us to pursue that. He pays us a set yearly fee to bring in hunters, plus additional money depending on what he harvests. It is much more profitable then raising cattle, when you figure dollars earned per hour of labor. I guess you might say that about most any other business.Do you have an elk hunting season? Can you get damage permits like we do here in Va for the deer????