First Cutting Monitoring – May 17th, 2022 SCNY Report

This is the SCNY Team’s third week of monitoring alfalfa heights for first cutting quality in 2022.  A full report for the seven-county region can be found in the following link: Alfalfa Height Reporting Sheet 5.17.22  (date prediction has been updated as of 11:45am 5/19/22)

If you’re interest in the CNY Team’s weekly report, it can be found in the following link:  Field Crop Update_May 17, 2022.  The CNY Team covers Chenango, Madison, Herkimer, Fulton, Montgomery, Otsego, Saratoga & Schoharie Counties.

Start Your Engines …

Across the region, locations saw 7-8.5″ of growth.  Orchard grass is heading out and some alfalfa is in early bud.  It’s absolutely time to check your fields for harvest.

Broome – 16.0″ average, 6.9″ gain –> grass fields should be harvested

Cayuga – 22.5″ average, 8.7″ gain  –> all grass fields should be harvested, at the 22″ 50/50 mixed grass/alfalfa harvest time

Chemung – 21″ average, 6.8″ gain –> all grass fields should be harvested, approaching 50/50 mixed grass/alfalfa harvest time

Cortland – 14.7″ average, 7.4″ gain –> all grass fields should be harvested

Onondaga – 20.0″ average, 8.7″ gain  –>  all grass fields are ready to be harvested, mixed stands approaching harvest time

Tioga – 18.7″ average, 7.0″ gain –> all grass fields are ready to be harvested, mixed stands approaching harvest time

Tompkins – 19.8″ average, 8.2″ gain –> all grass fields are ready to be harvested, mixed stands approaching harvest time

Dynamic Harvest This Year?

After today’s rain passes, there looks to be a 2-day window including some really warm weather over the weekend, before a front passes through on Sunday.  Next week hopefully there will be a good window to harvest all grass fields and potentially mixed grass/alfalfa fields.  If you have a variety of fields and know that your grass fields will be too far gone for dairy quality, use the rainy weather to determine if a Dynamic Harvest Schedule might be the best option for you this year.  You can read more about this tactic here:  Dynamic Harvest Schedules

A Reminder on our Methods

For prediction of NDF content, the height of alfalfa as an indicator is as follows:

• 100% grass stands – cut when nearby alfalfa is 14 inches tall (achieves 50% NDF)
• 50/50 grass/alfalfa stands – cut when nearby alfalfa is 22 inches tall (achieves 44% NDF)
• 100% alfalfa stands – cut when alfalfa is 28 inches tall (achieve 40% NDF)

Predicted days to cut are based on daily NDF increases for grasses of 1.0% point, 50/50 mixed alfalfa/grass stands of 0.8% points, and alfalfa of 0.5% points and are adjusted for the coming week’s weather.  Typically NDF increases about 0.8 to 1.2 per day for grasses, with cooler weather being the lower end of the range and warmer weather being the higher end.  For alfalfa, NDF increases about 0.4 to 0.7 per day, also dependent upon warm/cool weather.

Next Report

Look for our next report of monitoring heights to come out on Wednesday, May 25th.  In the meanwhile, if you can’t get out to check your fields, call one of us on the team.  We’ll be glad to help out.