Our May 24th Alfalfa-Grass Quality Monitoring Report has just been posted to our website here.
Across the region, our unseasonably warm weather helped push alfalfa growth ahead. Alfalfa height averaged 25.5”, up 6.9″ from last week.
30 to 40% grass fields are reaching and surpassing peak quality this week. Peak quality for these fields typically occurs when alfalfa is 26-28” tall. We recommend checking your grass and alfalfa-grass fields to evaluate development. We observed all grasses to be from
newly emerged heads to fully headed this week. Peak grass quality is when that head is just about to emerge out the top of the stem – late boot stage – and all fields we’ve been monitoring are beyond that stage at this point.
Grassiest fields, those with 50-100% grass, are now beyond peak quality and declining in nutritional quality. Appropriate quality for non-dairy livestock is here with those fields.
The North Country continues to struggle with dry soil conditions. Though the Drought Monitor folks have shrunk the size of the droughty area in NNY, the lack of rain over the past couple of weeks is resulting in dry, cracked top soils and stressed new seedings showing some deficiency symptoms. The Watertown and Massena areas and all along the lake in Clinton County seem to be the driest. This week’s Drought Monitor map may well reflect those worsened conditions.