A hay-raising experience

Growers assemble for informative meeting

COLUMBIA BASIN — Some growers turned up Wednesday morning to touch base with their industry, but Keith Rupprecht wishes there were more.

Rupprecht is president of the Mid-Columbia Basin Hay Growers Association which held its annual meeting Wednesday at Big Bend Community College's ATEC Center. Rupprecht also serves as treasurer of the state's hay grower association.

Informational presentations Wednesday included "Sneaky Ways to Catch a Hay Thief," the value of composted mint as an alternative to inorganic fertilizer, teff as an alternative forage crop and Columbia Basin crop options for biodiesel and ethanol production.

Rupprecht said many of the topics at the meeting will come into play for growers in the next few years. For example, one farmer at a recent dairy meeting had a hay fire and was unable to find hay for organic feed because it was not available, he said.

"It's going to be a niche market, it's going to be a specialized market, and I think hay growers need to look at this down the line as a possibility for maybe a small niche in their hay program," Rupprecht said.

Composting, too, may be something growers need to look at in the future as an alternative because of the high cost of fertilizer.

"Some of these things we put on in these meetings may not interest the farmers right now … we're actually trying to tell you, 'This is a trend that we're seeing that is going to happen,'" he said. "Why we put on these meetings is to go and try to educate people, and we wish that more people would attend."

Typically, the meetings are held in February, but Rupprecht said John Kugler, educator for the Washington State University Grant/Adams Area Extension, and others wanted the meeting to coincide with other meetings around the state. The state meeting will be Dec. 18 and 19, Rupprecht added, "and we thought this could kind of be the kick-off."

Rupprecht said the hay industry experienced a fairly good year production-wise as a whole, save for rain in the fourth cutting. Hay cut after Oct. 1 was damaged, he said, and hay in some areas is still lying in the fields.

"Prices are up this year, but it's just to go and counter the expenses, so it really just is almost a wash in many ways," he said, noting that the cost of production is up compared to last year due to energy costs. "When you have $3 fuel, it's really hard on everything because with hay, you're going across the field cutting, raking, baling and then hauling the hay off, and you're doing that four times during the season for four crops. Alfalfa especially is an intense crop, and so that's really hard for a lot of people to realize how much goes into that bale of hay."

Next year's first cutting looks like it will be in high demand, Rupprecht said. Many growers are getting calls from people looking for hay to feed their livestock in the cold weather.

"This kind of weather is really good for a hay grower, because we sell a lot more hay when we have cold weather," he said.

"It's good to touch bases with other hay growers, exchange ideas, see how their yields and their ideas have changed into production and see how that relates to make sure all our productions were similar," Soap Lake grower Tim Ray said. "It's just a good idea to touch bases with people that are doing the same thing you're doing."

Ray said he grows grasses like timothy and orchard grass, so he was interested in the nitrogen fertilization and possibility of nitrate accumulation, one of the items on the meeting's agenda. He also recently planted alfalfa for the first time in several years.

"Lot of the programs are about alfalfa in these hay organization things, so I'm back to kind of going to them now because we're getting back into alfalfa a little bit," he said.

Ray said he would also like to find a way to transfer composting into his hay fields from his orchards, so he was interested in the presentation about composting mint as an alternative to inorganic fertilizer.

"Hay farmers, especially, out of all the farmers, I think, are real environmentally organized people," he said, adding that the product keeps the land intact, is good for the air and has multiple uses for animals. "I think people would enjoy knowing that farmers are stewards of the land and that we do think about environmental things. We're here making sure that we're not doing anything wrong, we're wanting to hear the latest technology and we're wanting to try new ideas. It seems like it's a very progressive group of farmers, as opposed to some of the other groups of farmers that are maybe more chemical-oriented."

"You've got to renew yourself, and at the same time you get to visit with other people that's in the same business, the same interest," Warden grower Finn Clausen said.

Clausen added that the year had treated him "pretty fair."

"Compared to everything else, hay has probably been a bright spot," he said of area agriculture.

Quincy grower Murray Van Dyke said he was also interested in nitrate impacts upon his grass, and echoed Clausen's sentiment that the season had been pretty good.

"I think it's important to keep up on what's happening in the industry, see what the trends are," Van Dyke said.

Moses Lake grower Vern Sandman said he was interested in catching hay thieves and the impact of alfalfa seeding dates upon yields.

"We like to plant in the fall after wheat, and we can't plant the first part of August like they were talking, so we're more towards the end of August, or the first week of September," Sandman explained. "That's very interesting."