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Ideas on cool season crop

F

fastline

Member
I am still working on my short term ag plan. I am currently growing oats as a cereal hay product. I have found this to be a complete waste of time and resources in my area. I can sell it if I give it away. In short, I want out of the hay business FAST. However, I need to keep my field clean thus the reason for growing it. I still have half my yield baled up sitting in the field right now. It is just too expensive to cultivate, plant, fert this annual and do very well with it.

Anyway, I have long term plans to get away from hay, but in the short term, I have a solid play for my warm season product that will be planted around June and stay in the field through the summer. However, I really need something annual in the field in the spring to lock out competing weeds.

I am primarily looking for something I can grow over 30+ acres, harvest easy enough, have a good solid retail market, and be worth my time to grow. I could get stuck with another year or two of oat hay but I am trying to avoid it...
 
It really depends on where you live to decide what crops to grow.

I live in Eastern Iowa and my pattern is as follows:

I will take a field and put it in alfalfa for 3-5 years, then burn it off and put it in alternating corn/beans for a few years, then repeat the pattern. I am trying putting oil radishes in the fall after soybeans this year and will repeat that if it works well.
 
Crimson or any other clover that is popular in your area for seed, builds the soil, easy sell. Find yourself a good Allis Chalmers all crop on craigslist to harvet with and your in business.
 

LAA, I am interested, please tell me more.


Please keep in mind that right now, I need an annual as I have a summer crop to plant in June.
 
Massey has it right - put in what the local horse owners want and you'll sell it all. If you have a dairy nearby they'll likely take all the clean alphalfa you make.
 
well now I just read your other post below - you're making too many decsions based on oppinions from a wide variety of different areas. Have sit down with your local agent. He has a better idea of what's best for your area.
 
So you are looking for a double crop situation, you already
have the second crop, but you are looking to use the land from
whenever spring is wherever you are located, until First week
of June?

But we don't know where you are, what your soil is, what your
climate is, when spring starts, how much rain you get? We
don't know if your second crop is a grass, a legume, a
brassica, or what, so we could compliment it with a different
sort of spring crop?

Ok then. ;)

Can you plant rye in fall, when does your summer crop,
whatever it is, come off? Rye matures pretty farst, might get
grain and straw by mid June for quite a bit of production early.

Clover is possible, but it grows slowly to start so won't
compete with the early weeds very well, which is probably your
goal, weed suppression.

I hear Sudan grass, teff, and so forth are good annual grasses
for hay, but not sure of their timing as to getting the mature
and baled by June.

Peas almost make it, but not quite.

Oats hay is kind of a special market, only people that know
about it are interested in it, and you need to make it early to
have the best feed value - which often conflicts with a rainy
period 'here' so it is very tough to make right.

Paul
 
I should clarify. I am in central KS. Summer crop is sunflower. soil is sandy loam (great ground), PH at 5.8-6.2. My primarily goal is working test plots for specialty crops and expand. However, during that time, the remaining ground must be worked.

I experienced thee oat hay issues full bloom this year getting rain on my downed hay, then thee nightmare of like 15" of rain in a few weeks on all the bales.

Oat hay comes out in mid June. oats did a stellar job locking out weeds this year and just had some feral rye in it, probably in the seed.

I am stilling looking for specialty crops but after the disaster with oat hay, I am trying to change it up now.
 
I'll second Kornfused suggestion to talk to your county extension agent to try to optimized your crops and production methods for your ground and local climate.

Finding a reliable market with good prices is likely your biggest and most rewarding challenge. Your county or state extension service should be of some help because they may already be working with others are in your situation. Also talk to the local sale barn (and maybe grain elevators, local canning companies, food co-ops, grocery stores, etc. - any potential market) to identify what crops are in the highest demand in your local. Consider forward-contracting a portion of your production to reduce your risks.

Are horses still popular in your area or are horse owners getting rid of their animals there too? Veterinarians who work on horses should know. The same veterinarians should be able tell you what type of hay they recommend for horses and who owns/stables large numbers of horses -identify your potential local markets.
 
Was just is central Ks(CottonWood Falls).,raised
there,still got family there....Winter wheat.then
imidiately(chase the combine from the field) no-till
soybeans or milo right into the stubble.Works for
them. two crops in one year.That would be my
choice....Steve
 
These are just my thoughts, hope you don’t mind…

I live in Illinois with clay soil so our farming is a little different. I am about the last one using a cover crop in my area.

I plant rye that can either be taken off as hay in late may or early June or turned under for a green manure crop. A green manure crop may help your sun flowers produce more and add organic matter to the soil.

You can also use a burn down spray and no-till into rye in early may.

I once planted tri-cal it’s a rye-wheat cross it may work in your area if you can make a deal to sell it for cattle feed.

Some have suggested alfalfa and grass hay, if you don’t mind putting up hay for the horse owners in your area.

Have you thought about putting say 10 acres into permanent alfalfa hay and the rest into your regular crop with a cover crop, Green manure crop rotation?

That could be a money maker if you have the hay buyers.
 
I think as a whole, I am trying to get away from the hay market as soon as I can. A miracle year would be $1000/acre. There are some crops that can bring as high as $40k/acre. I realize these are much more labor intensive, require processing, lab work, etc.

In KS, most farmers select the easy way, the way their dad did it, or the way the FSA says to do it. I am an engineer and entrepreneur so my mind is always thinking outside the box, and commonly get the "you are nuts" statement.

I get excited about high tech ag work. Hay just does not much challenge me and there is not enough money in it unless running BIG acres of legume. I only have 40 acres to work with for now. I am hoping to expand my farm though. My family were all in farming so I am excited to get back in as a 5th generation farmer.
 
Fastline you are going back wards with your crop choices. Your earlier post about produce and all would might work in an Eastern state. If you are in Central Kansas there just is not enough people to make the produce type crop work at the scale you are talking. Also Kansas is pretty dry state in the summer. So unless you have irrigation the crop choices are pretty limited.

You need to research the retail market for a crop you can grow. The selling side is the hard part. Any fool can grow something but you have to have a crop/product that some one is willing to buy.

Saw a large field 50-60 acres of pumpkins grown close to here a few years ago. The guy though he could sell them to some processor. HE found out real quick that they are grown/sold on a contract. He sold some to a few local grocery stores and disk the rest under after they froze. He grew a great crop of pumpkins but he did not or could not market them.

There are literally hundreds of crops I could grow on my good ground here but there are just a few that you can sell and make any money on. So my planting decisions are made around what I can sell not what I can grow.

Oat hay is a low quality product. You usually raise the Oats and sell them as grain then have a straw crop. I only plant oats as a nurse crop for new hay seedings.
 
You are not nuts for trying to think outside the box.

You are perhaps a little off for not looking for your market first,
to match the land and time resources you have available. ;)

You might note a lot of the fellas here, myself included, are
those FSA type farmers, just sitting back taking the easy
way.....

Us lazy bums have seen a lot of deep thinkers come and go....
They just never seem to have the work ethic to make any of
their thinking work out.

All in good fun. I wish you well. If you stick with it, someday it
will all click and you will find your calling, and what you
produce will bring you happiness, and sometimes even a little
profit.

If 'only' a measely thousand bucks an acre, not that that is
even worth going outside the house for.....

Paul
 

JD, I firmly agree with you and I do have experience in market research. Kind of got hit in the head on my recent hay experience but I did look at it and it is well proven that oat hay is a great product for all livestock and specific for dairies and calves. Despite that, hay buyers will always go to the cheaper guy and their is a whor born every minute in the hay business. I watched people baling up and selling weeds from the ditches while my oats just sat because I was asking 150/T.

I am looking closely at both the feasibility of growing here, and the sales market. I had plenty of ideas fall flat already because I cannot put faith in the market.

I will be irrigating. I will be using multiple 5" wells with drip for max efficiency. Drip is something that has proven VERY effective even for beans and corn today.
 
There used to be a farmer near me in northern Kansas who grew pumpkins every year. Thanks to years of hard work, he got the reputation as THE place to get your pumpkin(s). Another reason he got a lot of business was because he lived next to a busy highway. He put all six of his kids through college just by growing pumpkins. He quit the business only because he got cancer and died.
 
JD, when you plant a field to hay, lets say I wanna round up a hay field then replant hay, would you recommend ploughing, disking ect. Or no till drill? I would like to round up a field I hay, it's reed canary grass and some weeds. I was told not to plough under canary grass as it as it will just spread worse from the roots being cut. Round up it to kill the roots? Just looking for opinions. Thanks.
 
Reed canary grass is hard to control. I have friend that have it in MO. They usually burn it down in the fall with Roundup. Then plant corn corn in the spring. Light tillage is usually best. Then they use a three way tank mix to get full season control. Atrazine 1 quart to the acre, Princep 1 pint to the acre, and 1 pint of Dual. They have had good luck doing this to control the canary grass. This mixture works better than some of the more modern low rate stuff. Usually after a year of corn they can rotate the field back to alfalfa. Then control the reed canary grass with POST herbicide in the alfalfa. There is no know way to control it in grass.
 
Thanks JD, I was gonna talk to a dairy farmer up the road and see if he wanted to put corn on it for a year or 2. But I know he works alot of land so I dident bother him with it. It's not real bad when cut early, but that almost never happens around here. Lol! Thanks again.
 
Where are you actually located? Different areas
have different markets and soil capabilities.
 
If you want to grow high value crops with a good local market you need to get out of the midwest and move to the East or West Coast.My farm is in a basically surburban area and here there is almost an unlimited market for locally grown fruits and vegetables especially organic but don't have to be strictly organic to command a good price.The mindset of the average consumer on food is totally different here from the midwest.Farmers markets are flooded with buyers all Summer,I have people just stop in to ask if they can buy some of my garden crops that can be seen from the road and I'm not on a major road by any means.All I need now is about 30 years of my life back(LOL)
 
Look at your market. I had my very tiny farm in hay for 25 years, and made money with it. My market was horse people. Many don't have a way to handle round bales, so everything was baled into small squares. Also lots of Amish in my area, and I always advertised hauling available. Look at what your potential customers want and their limitations. It'll help you decide how to market your crop. If you are growing corn or soybeans this step is not necessary, just haul them to the local elevator.
 
Kansas. Now if you were in Northern New Zealand or southern England... you would have no noticeable dormant season, and have many 'no winter' opinions... You aren't going to find a way out of this with legs. 2 or 4 legs.
A hardy breed of beef fenced in and feed with what you can't sell, water is handy? build a couple open sheds... you got fertizers walking around all winter too.
The only way to make money on hay or feeds like you are trying to do is suburban llama or horsey people... horses aren't fussy at all, but the owners always are.
Vegetables. 30 acres is a nice patch since you have H2O handy, all you need is some illegals. Very labor intensive, but in my area... seasonal labor for truck farm and tobacco goes back 200 years. No way around it unless Kansas has no welfare and high unemployment.
If you are thinking along the lines of winter wheat or winter rye... on a small patch like yours, 'modern farming practices??' it just won't happen. Trouble with edgercassuns... the only people making money are the professors, and most never met the business end of a cow... this is where the rubber meets the road bud. Just hang on to the land, collect whatever small old fashioned equipment you can find cheap, and find some old trailers to put your workers while they are picking.... if anything else works...you are a really lucky guy!!! good luck!!
 
Friend of mine retired as an engineer with a really BIG company and returned to the home farm. He fancied himself as an out of the box thinker. Many people do but very few are. He tried every exotic thing you could ever think of. Now, at age 84, he's back to a corn, soy, alfalfa rotation with some beef cattle. Good thing he had enough money to try all those things.
 
Crimson is an annual clover and there are several others, the seed is a big seller in my area for winter grazing and food plots.
 
(quoted from post at 19:13:51 08/31/13) Friend of mine retired as an engineer with a really BIG company and returned to the home farm. He fancied himself as an out of the box thinker. Many people do but very few are. He tried every exotic thing you could ever think of. Now, at age 84, he's back to a corn, soy, alfalfa rotation with some beef cattle. Good thing he had enough money to try all those things.
Click to expand...

Uh Bill, that is quite depressing...:)

I'll admit that I am sure to see my failures in this venture thus the reason for building my shop out there too so I will have several revenue streams.

One thing I could certainly make money at is wind power here in KS. We are proven to have one of the best wind rating in the USA. However, as with most things, the gov't have their hands all over it where it would be a super high risk proposition.
 
Be a little cautious on the horse hay. I am in horse country, so I can sell my hay easily. But even here the last recession put a big dent in the number of horses people own. I'd guess the horse population nationwide is down at least 20 to 25 %. Hobby horse hay buyers buy small quanties at a time so they are a pain in the butt to deal with and load up. Check to see if you have many big horse operations in your area and go talk to them. If you sell to a hay broker, who then resells the hay some distance away, he is going to get a big cut for handling and transportation. Horse hay is a market but is not without a downside.

The easiest horse hay to sell is just a straight grass mix of orchard and timothy. No rain, square bales, stored inside. very dry, no mold.
 
I was specifically looking at Teff as a hay product but I decided not to even try it due to the reception. Technically, if you look it up, it will smoke anything on the market as a horse hay product. Very grassy, higher paletability, higher CP, etc. However, when I made mention of it to my oat hay buyers, they were like, "huh", instead of "SUPER, sign me up!"

After dealing with a few horse owners, I really don't even want to make hay aside from what I might use for mulching purposes. I had the idea to run a few crops purely as soil builders.

Buyers on my oats were either horse owners or prize goat owners. Oh, there was one that had show cows!! :D
 
No offense... but I don't think you really understand who you're dealing with when it comes to the horsey crew. They don't want the exotic, unproven, out of box ideas. They want cheap, no dust, looks green, grass hay. In that order although one and two can fluctuate depending on just how cheap and just how dusty it is... A good number of them are off the wall, nuts... hard to deal with. Some are great. It's just what goes with the territory.
Best thing for you to do if you try dealing with them is to place your engineering logic out of the picture for a while... because a lot of them deal in this pseudo factual information that they got from so and so or read online and don't understand the context in which the research was done and presented. The less you inform them the better off you both are. I should probably shut my face now before I get this thrown in my face by someone...

As far as what you could do for other crops... research what there is a strong market for in the area that's not being utilized. I have no idea what that is in your region.

Rod
 
I appreciate the reply. I probably don't have a full scope of understanding on the hose people but regardless, I do know what it takes to make hay in terms of hours, fuel, equipment, land use, etc. All that considered, around here, IMO, unless you are growing Alfalfa in small squares, the value per acre of hay just is not there compared even to beans, corn, and sometimes wheat. That is figuring in all the extra man hours for haying in that.

I realize I have a LOT of thinking to do so most of this is just that,,,thinking out loud.

I am still hoping to hear something I have not heard of before. Just exploring. I know one thing that super frustrates me with hay is the value density so transportation to other areas is not feasible. I am used to being able to ship product all over the world.

Maybe growing specialty algae strains for oiling and refine onsite is what I should be doing...:) Would certainly scratch my tech brain itch I guess but I bet there are plenty of head aches there and you can't exactly surpass thee price of of commercial fossil fuels either.
 
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