Reclaiming land for haying

[chevytaHOE5674]

UP here 8 years would have tag alder clumps with 20 stems each 2-5" in diameter, and aspen trees 15-20 foot tall and 4" in diameter.

There's 90 acres by me that needs the brush cleared, ground plowed and disced (was last in silage corn 8 years ago and has ruts 3 foot deep), then planted into a hay crop. I just can't get the math to pencil out for anything less than a 7-8 year free lease with the cost of diesel, fertilizer, seed, wear and tear, etc.

 

[rocfarm]

Unless wha

Maybe. Depends what is down in the seed bank and what is surrounding the old hayfield. I had a place logged and cleared in late 2008, got the leftover crap piled by late 2009 and then Got busy with my house build and getting the yard fenced off from the pasture and got a bit behind keeping the far portion mowed or sprayed. By late 2010, the very back part of that newly cleared land looked like this:
View attachment 24425
Some of that I could barely get the tractor over and the bush hog took a beating.

View attachment 24426
(The growth to the left of the tractor is an unburned brush pile)
You can take land from nature but nature ALWAYS wants it back..

Unless what's planted there agrees with nature so much that it takes over.

This Bermuda grass was plowed for over 15 years to plant winter wheat, then the winter wheat was grazed to the ground leaving all but bare soil each June through September. As soon as the winter planting was stopped it started coming back. No care, it's been through two D4 droughts, grazed often, and it already covers most of the field on that end, and looks to want to produce decent tonnage. I was really surprised. It is not native, but really fits that soil type, evidently.

 

[Warren Allison]

" i couldn't really see a downside either. Thought I was missing something. If all goes well he can hay it for as long as he wants afterward. Maybe a win, win."

It seems like you are missing something.

Unless you have some kind of deal with the Devil you are still paying property taxes... at the very least. Your land is worth something. And the guy raising crops is not improving your soil as much as depleting it. This is the nature of plant agriculture.

You can make a mutually beneficial deal... but that means YOU get something of value too, not just him.

And again, some kind of performance clause is advisable. You don't want some guy that changes his oil by dumping it in your fields, destroys fences, uses your property as a dump, or cheats you from any kind of payment without a way to remove him.

Uhhh, and he is NOT paying taxes on it now?!!! He IS getting something out of it... thousands of dollars in tractor and dozer work., and thousands of dollars in fertilizer, herbicide and lime. If the man is spending that much money and labor to make this a hayfield, he damn sure ain;t gonna run it down and deplete the soil!!! My, God! @tcurry, don't listen to comments like that. Dude, I would have a cooler of beer and something on the grill for him everyday he was out there working on my place!

 

[Travlr]

I've never heard anyone advise people to avoid protecting their own interests. That's a new one for me.

 

[Son of Butch]

I have 45 acres in central Arkansas that has not been hayed for about 8 years. A guy wants to reclaim it for haying rights. We are still negotiating but here are the basic terms:

He will bulldoze/bush hog and prepare land, fertilize/seed etc.
At no cost to me but he gets to hay this property for the next 5 years at no cost to him.
Then we terminate or renegotiate.
Can someone tell me deal or no deal? Or maybe tips or tricks to determine how to get a fair shake.
Thanks!

Deal, sounds win-win to me.
By saying it's a reclamation project it seems that it has become mostly useless to you.

Soil test fertility at your expense before starting with a clause requiring a soil test in the 5th year and 5th year fertilization accordingly at his expense to insure it's not returned depleted. By then you would know if it needs further improvement (ie drainage/tiling) and if you want to do it yourself or use it as a basis for negotiation with him after his lease has ended or with another future renter.

 

[gman4691]

Comparing what it would cost you to clear & reclaim it yourself with what you could expect to make off of it by selling hay (or some other use like cattle or some planting type of crop) once it's back in shape is definitely in order. If doing it yourself is cost prohibitive, the next thing I would consider is what you plan on doing with the land after the five years. And I would want some kind of agreement that he would fertilize the fields (and lime if needed) at the end of the agreement. That way, you could maintain the field (always easier to keep up than to catch up) then grow and sell hay off of it in years to come. Or put a few cows on it if that's your thing.

 

[BFE]

Any repeat soil testing should be done under similar conditions. Time of year, soil temp, microbial activity can all have an impact on results.

 

[RDFF]

I'd say in general, you've got a good thing going with him... BUT, haying is probably the hardest thing you can do on a piece of ground. You'll have the soil "covered" with a cover crop (a good thing)... but everything that it grows will be taken off as hayto be fed on somebody else's ground... and you'll receive the compaction of haying equipment, and the cutting short and taking 90% of the growth, how many times a year, and for 5 years in a row??? That's hard on the ground and the soil biology. Then throw in inorganic fertilizer impact, and maybe herbicide impacts besides....

If there was a way to get him to instead "hay it" by rotationally grazing it, and maybe even feeding his cattle with hay brought in from somewhere else onto it when it's not the growing season, you'd be further ahead. He'd end up putting fence up on it then too (unless it's already fenced... haven't been given those details yet).

OR... maybe he could pasture it "all" off (leaving behind an appropriate amount of residual), and at the end of the haying season, YOU could put cattle YOU OWN on it in the "non-haying season", feeding them hay you purchased from somewhere else, thereby improving the ground? OR, maybe you could stipulate that he can take 2 hay cuttings a year off, but then he has to leave the third cutting (or whatever is contextually appropriate) for grazing as winter stockpiled feed... which he is allowed to graze off..., OR... you could maybe feed some custom fed cattle on it during the non-haying season?

All options... my point is, by grazing it, you'll have opportunity to improve the land alot more than by haying it. By allowing at least that one last crop of the season to reach maturity, you'd be helping the root structure of the forages, which in turn helps the soil structure and aggregation, carbon cycle, and water cycle. By appropriately GRAZING that last crop off, you'll be adding microbial life back into the soil, along with manure fertility. Feeding on it during the non-haying season will bring it along much faster than just leaving it sit until the next growing season. It takes a few years to get to really good, biologically active ground... these 5 years while being used by someone else but managed optimally, with their "investment", could be your opportunity to "inherit" that good, biologically active ground!

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

BUT, haying is probably the hardest thing you can do on a piece of ground.

We can agree to disagree on this subject. BUT if cattlemen go around saying how terrible making hay is then where will our hay come from in the future? Spouting that kind of statement off could leave a sour taste in land owners/ environmentalists mouths and give them a podium to preach on.

My opinion is that agriculture already has enough hurdles to jump thru and more are being added by the day. One method of Ag shouldn't try to promote itself by how "bad" another style is.

 

[RDFF]

There will always be individuals involved in agriculture that will not want to raise cattle, but that will choose to raise "cash crops" instead. Cash crops like corn, soybeans, hay..., and many others.

In some respects "hay" can potentially be a better "cash crop" from a soil biology perspective than are other cash crops like corn for example, because the entire ground surface is "armored" with green, living, typically perennial plants... while corn plants themselves typically will only be taking up about 10% of the soil surface directly with a plant. From an erosion perspective, that in itself gives the "win" to the hay field. And then there is the tillage and chemicals used there besides... and if you choose to grow corn and take all the corn plant as silage, or take the residue off as bales after harvesting the grain, and selling them, you've really done the soil a disservice. It's that "removal of everything that is grown" that really impacts the ability of the soil biology to be fed (they need something to consume or they die). Corn harvested only as grain returns alot of crop residue back to the soil. Haying however, as traditionally done, returns almost nothing of the above ground foliage... it is all (except for the root mass in the soil) typically intended to be removed, sold, and fed with the resulting manure applied somewhere else. If the "hay" is being grazed off, about 90% of the residue and any "grain" (seed) grown is returned back to the soil in the form of digested organic matter in the manure...

Obviously, I'm expecting that hay will be made somewhere., going so far as suggesting that hay from "somewhere else" could be brought to his land... thereby improving the soil even faster.

I was answering the OP's question with my best advice. Isn't that what this forum is for? If we have to guard our honest answers to avoid "stepping in it", then what's the point of discussing it? This isn't about "one method of ag" promoting itself antagonistically vs. another. It's about HOW what we do affects the biological functioning of the very soil functions we are dependent upon. What we do with our soil... has consequences. The more we understand and admit that honestly, the sooner we can begin working toward improving those functions. Not recognizing it... or if we do recognize it, ...not mentioning that reality and then not looking for ways to improve, only relegates us to continuing to operate within a degrading system.

 

[Ebenezer]

Deal, sounds win-win to me.
By saying it's a reclamation project it seems that it has become mostly useless to you.

Soil test fertility at your expense before starting with a clause requiring a soil test in the 5th year and 5th year fertilization accordingly at his expense to insure it's not returned depleted. By then you would know if it needs further improvement (ie drainage/tiling) and if you want to do it yourself or use it as a basis for negotiation with him after his lease has ended or with another future renter.

Yes. That is fair to all as it leaves soil fertility at the same level, at least, as it was when he started. Smart.

 

[RDFF]

tcurry... did you ever figure out how you will proceed?

 

[greybeard]

Soil test fertility at your expense before starting with a clause requiring a soil test in the 5th year and 5th year fertilization accordingly at his expense to insure it's not returned depleted.

Some counties here in Tx require hay fields to be fertilized anyway, in order to keep ag exemption. The county I left a year ago did.