By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

AKRON, Ind. — With nearly 1,000 acres of corn and 700 acres of soybeans to plant and 300 acres of alfalfa to cut for the first time, Indiana grower Kris Fear is racing like mad to get his corn in the ground in time to make hay.

“The beans will have to wait until the ground is warmer,” he said. “Thanks to a cold, wet spring, we’re already two to three weeks behind schedule in planting. We’re only three or four days from finishing the corn, but some of the fields may have to wait so we can make hay.”

One of his Fulton County neighbors, Dave Clauson, stopped corn planting 30 acres short of completion to cut alfalfa. “I’m still waiting for those areas to dry out,” he said.

Their quandary is a catch-22 faced by many Hoosier farmers who view May 10 as the traditional date by which corn should be planted and any date after that constituting a loss of “a bushel a day” in yield. Normally, they can wait until the corn is planted to make hay – but this year has been different.

As Fear sees it, corn at $5-$6 a bushel is as valuable as dairy-quality alfalfa hay selling for $200 per ton – and, at current planting costs, just as risky.

“When I started farming, anhydrous was $91 per ton,” he said. “Now it’s $1,000. I think we came out better when corn sold for $3.50 per bushel.”

Costs notwithstanding, Fear and other Hoosier farmers are looking for ways to maximize yields of both crops. Dr. Bill Mahanna, coordinator of global nutritional sciences for Pioneer Seeds, a DuPont company, suggests growers refine alfalfa curing practices to maintain the integrity of harvested hay.

“Rapid, uniform curing is most desirable,” he said, “but forages don’t dry at a uniform rate.”

To offset curing time and potential quality losses, he suggests utilizing proper cutting and management practices. These include learning more about the alfalfa plant itself.

“Growers think that once it’s been cut, it’s dead,” he said. “Those cells continue living, functioning and metabolizing in the windrow until the plant reaches about 48 percent moisture.”

He cites three main reasons for quality loss: respiration losses in the field, leaf shatter from harvesting equipment and the worst, leaching due to any kind of rain.

Alfalfa has three curing phases. Of these, the initial and intermediate phases are the most rapid; the final phase takes more time and gives lie to the misconception that leaves dry primarily on the surface. According to Mahanna, the surface is covered with a waxy cutin layer for protection; the drying process occurs through stomates, openings in the leaves that function as lungs, where the moisture escapes. Stomates open during the day and close at night.

By understanding what stomates do, growers can aid the drying process through good windrow management that allows the crop to move into the intermediate phase of drying.

“At that moisture level, it is safe to silo the hay at harvest,” Mahanna said.

Another option is the use of a conditioner, which on a harvester, along with a wide windrow, is most beneficial when a grower is planning to bale alfalfa for dry hay.

Producers like Fear, Clauson and Doug Sheetz, a Columbia City farmer who normally cuts alfalfa every 30 days when it is in its early bud stages, have to weigh the risks of waiting on hay harvest, including the loss of yield and quality. Dairy farmers know that properly harvested protein is cheaper than buying supplements and that valuable vitamins and minerals are lost if leaves drop before harvest.

Dr. Dwain Meyer of North Dakota State University weighed into the harvest discussion with reminders about stubble height, noting that 3- to 5-inch heights were common because of rocks, pocket gophers or crop lodging. Recommending gopher control and rock removal, he concluded that it is better to harvest at a maturity that the lowest stubble height will produce prime hay, rather than sacrifice yield potential.

“In many cases,” he said, “the premium price will not offset the 30 percent reduction in yield.” He encourages beef cow producers to harvest as low as possible since forage quality of alfalfa is greater than that needed by a cow.

And, in answer to Kris Fear’s concerns about which should come first – the corn or the hay – Dave Robison, agronomist/seed market manager for the CISCO companies, said, “If we use the corn ‘rule’ of losing a bushel a day at $5 per bushel, then we’d have to delay planting corn 20 days to equal the same amount lost.”