Dairy – Go, Go, Go! – Beef Wait

With a little rain and lots of warm weather hay grew rapidly this week. Maturity advanced right along with the height with most fields at target fiber level for dairy quality forage. Legume fields are the exception, not quite at target quality.

Grasses grew as much as 9 inches in the past week and legumes as much as 7 inches (both averaged 5 inches). With warm weather fiber advanced rapidly for grasses, averaging 1.6 points/day, but only 1 point per day for legumes. TDN decreased only slightly this week, but we would expect it to decrease more rapidly as maturity advances.
The following table is my best guess for when hay will reach target quality for various classes of cattle. We have less experience with the beef estimates, but we feel comfortable that all fields are more than a week away from target for most beef cow groups.

		Beef
	Dairy	Growing Calf	Growing Yearling	Lactating Cow	Mature Dry Cow
Grass	NOW	NOW	7 days	7-10 days	14-18 days
Mixed	NOW	NOW	7 days	7-10 days	14-18 days
Legume	7-10 days	7-10 days	10-14 days	10-14 days	14-18 days

The Table on the below has each sample location, listed by Town and elevation, and lists the species sampled, average height, Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF), Neutral Detergent Fiber Digestibility (NDFD), and Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN). We have sampled grass, legume and mixed legume/grass fields across the county and at elevations from 1070 to 2100 feet. Look for locations with similar forage type and elevation to your farm.

We report several measures of forage quality. Different types and groups of cattle have different demands and each measure tells a slightly different story. If harvesting for dairy forage, we suggest harvesting based on NDF, for beef choose an appropriate TDN target or the animals you will be feeding

NDF – Neutral Detergent Fiber is a measure of the structural fiber in a feed sample. NDF correlates well with how much forage a cow can eat (gut fill). Earlier cut hay = lower NDF = higher dry matter intake = higher performance.
NDF goals for Dairy Cattle Forage: Grass hay and silage – 48 – 55%, MMG hay & silage – 40 – 50%, MML hay & silage – 38 – 45%, Legume hay & silage – 36 – 42%

NDFD – NDF Digestibility As forage plants mature, the fiber percentage increases, and at the same time the digestibility of the fiber decreases. NDFD measures the digestibility of fiber by rumen fluid. We report 24hr NDFD as an indicator of forage digestibility. Higher digestibility = more energy available from a forage. Grasses inherently have a higher NDF digestibility than legumes.

TDN – Total Digestible Nutrients The sum of the digestible fiber, protein, lipid, and carbohydrate components. TDN is a measure of energy available from forage and is related to digestible energy. TDN is useful for beef cow rations that are primarily forage. Higher TDN values indicate higher energy available, cattle groups with higher energy demands require higher TDN intakes.

Delaware County Scissor Cuts Results				May 10, 2022				May 17, 2022
Farm	Town	Elev	Species	Ht	aNDFom	NDFD	TDN	Ht	aNDFom	NDFD	TDN
Darling	Andes	1520	Tall Fescue	7	34.4	72	73	11	43.3	71	70
Eisele	Andes	1412	Orchardgrass	10	39.6	78	73	16	50	74	70
Evans	Andes	1820	Orchardgrass	12	43.7	73	70	19	49.4	70	73
Gladstone	Andes	1960	Mixed grasses	15	41.7	76	72	22	50.8	72	71
Mattson	Colchester	1090	Alf(50%)/Tfesc	8/8	35.2	65	72	12/12	36.7	49	70
Frisbee	Delhi	1380	Tall Fescue	11	42.3	72	71	19	55.3	61	71
Mushkoday	Delhi	1340	Alf(90%)/Tim	11/13	27.3	61	72	16/20	34.5	57	70
Rama	Delhi	1400	Clov(30%)/Grass	5/12	38.8	76	73	16/21	52.4	61	68
Sherwood	Delhi	1610	Mixed grasses	12	41.3	75	72	23	56.4	62	69
Sullivan	Delhi	1425	Clov(35%)/Orch	12	37.3	73	73	17	53.7	67	69
Buel	Franklin	1260	Alf(50%)/Orch	9/15	36.4	76	72	16/21	51.1	64	69
Grant	Franklin	1650	Mixed grasses	13	39.6	76	72	21	46.8	72	71
Taggart	Franklin	1720	Mixed grasses	13	42.7	66	73	16	53.3	60	69
DiBenedetto	Halcott	1730	Orchardgrass	15	39.7	79	72	20	50.2	71	72
Hutson	Hamden	1275	Alfalfa	7	24.9	61	75	13	35.4	62	71
Moody	Hamden	2100	Orchardgrass	9	37.9	72	73	12	49.2	68	70
Reed	Hamden	1740	Ken. Bluegrass	6	37.1	73	71	10	53.2	64	68
Scobie	Hamden	1740	K. Bluegrass	10	41.2	71	71	12	53.2	65	70
Hillriegel	Hardenburgh	1670	Orchardgrass	16	43	76	72	20	60.2	56	67
Hager	Kortright	2000	Mixed grasses	10	33.9	84	75	13	46.3	74	72
Haynes	Kortright	1900	Orchardgrass	11	40	77	71	17	52.1	67	70
Keator	Meredith	1600	Tall Fescue	10	38.2	75	75	14	48.8	68	72
Elliot	Middletown	2060	Reed Canarygrass	15	43.9	75	72	24	52.7	68	70
Gray	Middletown	1910	Reed Canarygrass	15	45.9	68	69	19	56.7	65	67
Coombe	Neversink	1420	Tall Fescue	9	42.1	71	71	14	55.1	65	66
Krum	Neversink	1730	Ken. Bluegrass	6	44.6	69	72	10	52.2	66	71
Albano	Roxbury	1950	Mixed grasses	10	38.9	76	71	13	50.3	68	71
Gockel	Roxbury	1890	Mixed grasses	14	42.5	76	71	14	54.9	64	70
Kuhn	Roxbury	1980	Mixed grasses	10	39.4	75	73	14	48.8	68	70
Perry	Roxbury	1830	Orchardgrass	13	47.6	64	69	18	53.7	65	69
Johnson	Sidney	1070	Orchardgrass	14	39.7	76	74	22	48.9	68	71
Johnson	Sidney	1070	Alfalfa	10	25.3	59	71	17	30	58	71
Deysenroth	Stamford	1510	Mixed grasses	9	37.3	78	71	9	50.6	66	71
Hanselman	Stamford	1488	Alfalfa	9	27.5	55	73	12	33.2	57	70
Martin	Stamford	1560	Alf(65%)/Orch	8/13	32.4	72	72	12/13	46.4	69	68
Ryan	Stamford	1800	Mixed grasses	7	46.4	71	69	11	51.7	65	71
Trovato	Stamford	2080	Mixed grasses	8	42.2	68	70	15	47.6	67	73
LaTourette	Tompkins	1210	Clov(20%)/grass	8/10	34.8	75	74	6/20	53.9	67	70
Marsiglio	Walton	1750	Orchardgrass	9	39.8	67	72	12	50.3	57	70
Wickham,B	Walton	1170	Alf(30%)/Orch	9/15	40.4	76	72	15/18	43.9	66	69
Wickham,D	Walton	1240	Wclov(50%)/grass	4/12	38.2	80	71	8/24	36.3	64	73
			Av Grass Ht	11.4				15.7
			Av Legume Ht	8.0				13.8