This is the team’s fourth week and final week of monitoring heights for first cutting quality in 2023. The full report for our six-county region (Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Tioga, Tompkins Counties) can be found in the following link: Alfalfa Height Reporting Sheet 5.23.23.
This week’s updates:
A message from team agronomist, Janice Degni:
Weather is with us for harvest. Take advantage of the window to harvest quality forage. Consider fertilizing or coating grass fields with manure to enhance yield for 2nd cut. Topdress alfalfa as needed.
Broome: all fields targeted for our weekly measurements have been harvested.
Cayuga: many fields have been harvested. Those remaining gained over 3″ from last week, and most all alfalfa fields are in our target range for peak quality.
Chemung: average height of remaining fields is over our 28″ threshold, with a gain of almost 4″ over last week.
Cortland: many fields we measure weekly have been harvested, remaining fields are only averaging 21″. Best to check local conditions for quality measures.
Tioga: average height here is 26″, a gain of over 4″ in remaining fields. Pure alfalfa fields should be targeted for peak harvest.
Tompkins: harvest is occurring here in earnest as well. Average height is 25″, a gain of over 3″ in remaining fields.
Safe Harvest
The SCNY Dairy & Field Crops Team would like to wish you all a safe and plentiful first cutting harvest as you continue through May. We’ve enjoyed some beautiful spring weather to get crops in and harvested both – we hope you can also take time to enjoy the Memorial Day weekend. And we hope that it rains soon!
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.
Lastly, some thanks!
We can’t provide this weekly update without a team of educators out each Tuesday gathering measurements from around our region. Many thanks to our team this year – Hailey Fuesner (CCE Chemung), Ron Kuck & Frank Clarke (CCE Cayuga), Janice Degni (SCNY Team) and last but not least, Fay Benson (SCNY Team) who celebrates his last year of weekly measurements before his retirement later this year!