By Eric Jenks, Special to NEAFA
As with many things in 2020, the weather has been exceedingly different across the Northeast, leading to low forage yields for some, and low normal for others. “Rainfall was extremely variable,” said Tom Kilcer of Advanced Ag Systems LLC, and a 33 year Cornell Cooperative Extension veteran. “It varied so much from location to location, storm to storm. One local farm, there was a five inch difference in rainfall between fields located three miles from each other.”
According to Joe Lawrence, a Dairy Forage Systems Specialist at PRO-DAIRY, New York generally faired the best in the area. “I hesitate to say that,” said Lawrence. “I’m talking to a lot of people that are hauling water because their wells are still having issues. The Southern Tier, the southwestern corner of the state, there are reports that it was drier there, and the St. Lawrence river valley area was quite dry as well. On the whole however, New York faired better than reports from Southern VT and from Conn. where they had extremely dry conditions.”
These dry conditions have lead to lower yields for many, though thankfully well timed storms saved corn silage for many. “There were some fortuitous rains that came through for the corn crop,” said Kilcer. “While the forage yield is lower, you’re going to see it have a higher percentage of corn grain in the rations. The struggle there is making sure that you don’t cause your animals to kick into acidosis from that extra corn grain.”
Lawrence agreed that the rains saved the crop for many farmers. “The timing of the rainfall, that tells the story for a lot of NY,” said Lawrence. “It was kind of just enough rain just in time type of scenario for the corn crop. When we think about the corn silage crop - many areas were quite dry in late june and early july, and having moisture around when the corn pollinates and germinates is necessary. That pollination aligned with some rainfall, and that saved the crop from being a total disaster. We’re just finishing up our corn silage research trials, but none of the locations that we had trials were the hardest hit for drought. The St. Lawrence County location was in an area that was considered a D2 drought area, but again it performed fairly well. Yields were down a little, but the forage quality was quite high. Very respectable given it was designated as a D2 drought area for parts of the season. For some of our research, we focus on rain patterns and corn silage. And what we’ve found is that in years with lower rainfall, we get higher fiber digestibility in the silage. It’s a more digestible source of forage for the cows so they can utilize more of the nutrients in the forage, which can help offset some of the lower yields.”
Lawrence hopes that the drought can be a teachable moment when it comes to hay harvesting. “Switching gears to hay, that was a little more variable through the season,” said Lawrence. “It started off cold this spring which resulted in first cuttings that were yielding lower than average quantities. It was a slow start, but quite good quality. The second cutting and third cuttings were where the hit to yields occurred for many. Much lower than expected. I think for many it’s a teachable moment. One thing we did observe in some areas and we’ve also observed in past years is that a timely first cutting results in a higher quality crop. But what we’ve tended to see is that the timing is important.Those that cut early, they benefited with higher quality feed and captured some of those rains that really gave the second cutting a boost to get growing. Compare that to a farm delayed by a week to ten days for the first cutting, they saw a lower quality crop and they missed those rains and the help needed for their second cutting. It was a teachable moment in the timing for a first cutting.
If you think that your forage yields were marginal, Lawrence recommends that you take inventory sooner rather than later. “Folks from the co-op [Cornell Cooperative Extension], and a lot of dairy nutritionists that work with farms are generally happy to help farms measure and calculate out how they’re feeding their forage out. It gives you time to adjust the feeding approach now, instead of running out of forage in March or April. It’s important to reformulate the diet now to stretch those inventories well so they don’t reach a cliff next spring. You can at least gradually ease into next year’s harvest instead of having to really disrupt the cows diet. Farmers can contact their local extension office for some resources and help with calculating inventories and that sort of thing. There’s some resources on the PRO-DAIRY website (https://prodairy.cals.cornell.edu/) that we’ve put on there this summer related to the drought considerations, and they’re certainly to welcome to email me if they don’t have contact with a local extension office. I’m always open to an email or call.”
To reach Lawrence, contact him at jrl65@cornell.edu, at his office number (315) 376-5275, or by cell at (315) 778-4814. Kilcer’s website can be viewed here: https://advancedagsys.com/