Sign up for UK Ag weather updates from our UK Ag Meterologist Matt Dixon through the link below. You will receive regular updates and explanations related to severe weather that will impact agriculture.
You can also sign up for the new UK Ag Weather Alert App. The new app in the Ag Weather Center was just released on Google Play, making it available for both iOS and Android devices! If a watch or warning is in effect, you’ll get a push alert sent straight to your phone. Click the links for installation.
If you are a serious grazer, make plans to attend the all-day Electric Fencing School June 12 in Bulter county. Fencing experts from the region will teach technical details of installing top quality electric fencing system for all scenarios and how to troubleshoot issues. This advanced school is limited to the first 35 participants. Sign up at: https://2024ElectricFencing.eventbrite.com or go to the UK Forage Website for more details.
Grazing Workshop, Little Research Farm, Production Agriculture, agriculture products, farm production, farm products, forage
The Kentucky Beginning Grazing School was held near the Beef Unit at the C. Oran Little Research Farm.
If you are interested in producing hay for horse markets, plan to attend this Field Day in Nicholas county June 27 (rain date July 2) from 5:30-8:00. The topics will include
1) Marketing hay to horse owners
2) Seeding hay fields with a drone
3) Demo on harvesting top quality hay.
At the field day James Judge will show how he utilizes even small irregular fields on ridgetops in northern KY to produce top quality alfalfa. He will also demonstrate some of the most advanced drone technology on the market today. Go “UK Forages” under Events to register. Location is Judge Farms, 4088 Moorefield Rd., Carlisle, KY.
Alfalfa is about 75% water when mowed. It must be dried to 13- 14% moisture for baling or 60-65% moisture for making silage. This means approximately 5.7 tons water/acre must be removed for making hay or 4.8 tons water/acre for making silage if expected dry matter yields are 2 tons/acre. The additional consideration is the first 15% of water needs to be removed quickly (for either hay or silage making) to reach 60% moisture or less to minimize starch and sugar loss due to respiration. If this initial drying process is prolonged, then unnecessary amounts of readily digestible carbohydrates can be lost, lowering the overall nutritional value of the forage. The most important factor in drying forage is sunlight. If we make a wide swath, we are increasing the surface area of the forage that is exposed to sunlight, increasing the drying process. If hay is put immediately into a windrow, only a fraction of the sunlight is used to dry the forage and the remainder is covered by other forage or falls onto the soil. Excerpt of article from NAFA News March 27,2024 (National Alfalfa and Forage Alliance)
Last fall UK Forage Specialists and county agents analyzed almost 454 hay samples as part of the Eastern Kentucky Hay Contest. Here is what we found:
Crude protein (6.1 to 21.9%) and total digestible nutrients (45.7 to 66.3%) varied widely
2% of the hay samples contained less than 50% TDN
1% of the hay samples contained less than 8% crude protein
184 samples or 41% contained enough energy to meet the requirements of a beef cow at peak lactation
300 samples or 66% would meet the protein requirements of a beef cow at peak lactation
450 samples or 98% contained enough protein to meet the needs of a dry pregnant cow
450 samples or 98% contained enough energy to meet the requirements of a dry pregnant cow
Samples 2023 were better than 2022, but this was probably mostly due to better hay making weather. The biggest take home from the 2023 samples is that we still have a way to go in terms of improving hay quality! More than 60% of the samples still needed energy supplementation when feeding hay to lactating brood cows and first calf heifers.
So, what don’t these results tell us? Since there is still wide variation in both crude protein and energy for the hay samples, average quality results CANNOT be used to make recommendations on what or how much to supplement. To make this type of recommendation, you will need to sample individual hay lots (one cutting from one field) that you will be feeding (see AGR-257 Hay Sampling Strategies for Getting a Good Sample). Once you have the results in hand, then a supplementation strategy can be designed by either working your local extension agent, nutritionist or veterinarian or by using the UK Beef Cow Forage Supplementation Tool ( http://forage-supplement-tool.ca.uky.edu/). Steps for utilizing UK Beef Cow Forage Supplement Tool found at http://forage-supplement-tool.ca.uky.edu/ .
Sweet Vernal Grass is widely distributed across the tall fescue belt, but it is poorly understood by most farmers. It helps make up a green sod, but when present at a significant level it suggests that pastures are in low state of productivity and may be in need of renovation.
Sweet Vernal Grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum, came to the US from Europe as a forage crop. It is native to acidic pastures in southern Europe and northern Africa. It is a cool season perennial grass that puts up a seedhead very early, about three weeks or so earlier than tall fescue. Forage nutritive value is high, but it is very low yielding, so it is not desirable as a pasture crop in our environment.
Sweet vernal grass is on the increase because it is more tolerant of low soil fertility and pH than other common cool season grasses, and it does well in a mix with those grasses. Across the region hay fields that have been managed with low fertilizer and lime inputs show high levels of sweet vernal in the first cutting hay. This is the one time sweet vernal is often noticed, and the hay yields in these fields are often disappointing, earning it a local name of “cheat”.
Later in the year the plants “hide” among the tall fescue plants which it resembles, so that many farmers forget about it after that disappointing spring hay cutting. However, these pastures and hay fields also don’t produce nearly as much forage as they could if the stand was mostly more productive species.
Sweet vernal grass can often be detected in hay by it’s unique sweet smell. This is often described as “vanilla-like”, a smell that comes from a compound called cumerin. When cumarin is present in moldy hay it is converted to dicumarol which inhibits the action of Vitamin K in the blood clotting system, resulting in slow clotting times. This scenario is more commonly associated with “sweet clover poisoning”, a malady that causes uncontrolled hemorrhaging and death when animals consume moldy sweet clover hay.
Dairy Science researchers at the University of Wisconsin working with sweet clover poisoning discovered dicumarol, and created the rat poison “warfarin” from this compound. This work also led to the first human “blood thinner”, Coumadin. These are important products, but of course are not something you want in your hay! Sweet vernal grass is one of the only other plants that has the potential to cause this malady when it is present in moldy hay. Cases of slow clotting time in cattle have been investigated and traced to moldy hay containing sweet vernal grass.
Many of the low management hay fields and pastures that have sweet vernalgrass are also dominated by broom sedge (broom straw) in the fall. These fields that receive a low level of management could be much more productive if renovated to productive species, like a new novel endophyte tall fescue variety. Scout your pastures and make sure you understand the main species you are growing. If you find a lot of sweet vernal grass or other unproductive species, take steps to improve the productivity of your land. ~ excerpt from article by Dr. Matt Poore for the Alliance for Grassland Renewal. For the full article go April 2024 edition of Novel Notes at http://www.grasslandrenewal.org
2024 Spring Fencing Schools—Hands on school focusing on the installation of fixed knot woven wire fence and electrified smooth high tensile fence. April 23 in Morehead, KY; April 25 in Mayfield, KY
2024 Beginning Grazing School—Not sure where to start? This school is designed to provide you with the tools needed to establish a profitable and sustainable grazing system. April 30-May 1 in Princeton, KY
Electric Fence Troubleshooting School—This school is designed to provide students with tips on installation of new and troubleshooting of existing electric fencing. June 12 in Morgantown, KY. Go to https://forages.ca.uky.edu/events to register or for more information or contact Caroline Roper at 270-704-2254 or Caroline.Roper@uky.edu
At a recent KY Grazing School Dr. Jeff Lehmkuhler reminded participants forage has to be reduced to a small enough particle size to exit the animal’s rumen. If it isn’t reduced, then it stays in the rumen. This is what occurs when animals are forced to eat extremely mature forage. As a result, the rumen stays full, and dry matter intake drops. “This phenomenon is a big reason why energy intake is the most common limiting factor in many forage-based livestock systems,” Lehmkuhler asserted.
To hit dry matter intake goals, pastures need to be kept vegetative as much as possible. Lehmkuhler suggested increasing the speed of rotations in the spring. For example, one full spring rotation may take 14 to 21 days, while a full rotation of animals grazing each paddock during mid-summer might be extended to 30 to 40 days.
During spring, Lehmkuhler recommended to start grazing when pastures have 3 to 4 inches of growth. Even then, it can be beneficial to also feed some hay, which helps ensure adequate dry matter intake. “If cows are turned out too early, they can end up walking the fat off their backs as they try to get enough to eat.”
On the flip side, waiting too long to turn cows out on spring pastures can make it difficult to keep the last paddocks from getting too mature. This why some farmers make hay from those pastures the first time through in the spring and then put them back in during subsequent rotations.
In Lehmkuhler’s experience, forage quantity is often more limiting than forage quality. Maximum dry matter intake for cattle occurs when pastures reach about 2,000 pounds of dry forage per acre, or roughly 10 to 12 inches of forage height. Conversely, dry matter intake becomes limiting when forage height is less than 3 to 4 inches, or below about 1,200 pounds per acre. “On the lower end, for every bite that they take, they aren’t getting as much to eat,” Lehmkuhler noted.
From research studies, cattle have been shown to graze about eight to 10 hours per day. “Grazing time and biting rate are relatively constant,” the beef specialist said. “Bite size varies with amount of forage available, and that impacts dry matter intake.”
Lehmkuhler emphasized to leave enough leaves for the plant to photosynthesize and rapidly regrow. He noted that overgrazing pastures is still the most common mistake that graziers make. This situation is both detrimental to the pasture and to animal performance.
~ excerpted from article by Mike Rankin in Oct. 2023 Hay and Forage Grower. Full article here.
Kentucky Forage News 
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