This is the team’s first week of monitoring alfalfa heights for first cutting quality in 2024. The full report for our six-county region (Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Tioga, and Tompkins Counties) can be found in the following link: Alfalfa Height Reporting Sheet 5.7.24.
This week’s updates:
After a rather gray and gloomy April, May has proved to be making up for April’s clouds with ample sunshine and great drying weather, up until late this week. We are seeing advanced alfalfa heights in relation to other years. Indeed, locations around the region started winter forage harvest for dairy quality this past week – and in some locations, dairy quality winter forage has passed. The cooler weather late this week through the weekend will help delay rapid maturation of grasses, but many locations are at dairy quality forage harvest right now. This is a a year for parking the corn planter and getting first cutting harvested.
Broome: average alfalfa height is over 15″, indicating that any full grass fields are at peak NDF quality for dairy forage harvest.
Cayuga: average alfalfa height is just under 15″, indicating that any full grass fields are ready for dairy quality forage harvest
Chemung: leading the region, as is normal most years, average alfalfa height was over 18″. Grass fields are ready for mowing, and mixed grass fields are predicted to be ready mid week next week
Cortland: average alfalfa heights here were about 13.4″. Cortland typically is one of the cooler counties in our region. All grass fields for dairy quality harvest are predicted to be ready within a week, and mixed grass alfalfa fields within 2 weeks.
Tioga: average alfalfa height here was measured at 18″. All grass fields are ready for dairy quality harvest in many spots around the county. Elevation does play a role, but this year is earlier than past years have felt.
Tompkins: average alfalfa height was just under 16″. All grass fields are ready for dairy quality harvest. Mixed grass alfalfa stands are predicted to be ready late next week.
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 15th. 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.
