 As part of Forage Month, we are going to do a webinar series and today's topic is the importance of forage quality in hay production. I'm Leanne Diller and I'm the Forage Extension Specialist for the State of Alabama. Before we get into the different ways we can improve our hay quality, let's first do a review of relative forage quality. So RFQ is an index for forage quality. It uses TDN or Total Digestible Nutrients, which includes crude protein and neutral detergent fiber fractions, as well as on top of that it includes predicted dry matter intake. This makes it superior to just using TDN or even RFV as an index for your forage quality. All forage reports from the University, the Auburn University Soul Testing Lab, include an RFQ value as well as reports from many private and other university-led labs. So RFQ is really useful because it takes both fiber digestibility as well as crude protein and put them into one index so that we don't have to keep looking between three different numbers. This index ranges from 0 to 300, but most hay is going to fall between 100 and 150 or 160. So for that, if your hay is below 100, it will probably need supplementation for any class of livestock. It does not mean it can't be fed to livestock, but you need to keep in mind that it likely will need to be supplemented. A lot of times, the hayagrass falls in that 90 to do 100 value range and it will need to be supplemented with some kind of protein or energy source to keep animals up on performance during the winter months. Now for heifers that are 18 to 24 months old, dry cows and idle horses, we can use fair quality hay. And this ranges from about 100 to 115 in RFQ. For brood mares, working horses, we need to have a little bit higher quality because they have a higher nutrition demand. And that needs to range from about 110 to 125, which would be considered good quality hay. For heifers that are a little bit younger, so 12 months to 18 months, lactating beef cows, nursing mares and hard-working horses, we want to have it a little bit higher anywhere from 115, 120 up to about 135. So this would also include dairy cows in the last 200 days of lactation, very young heifers, so 3 to 12 months, and stalker cattle. They're going to need the upper end of that good range, so 125 to 140. Now our premium quality hay is going to be 140 or greater. And this hay should be reserved for dairy cows in their first 120 days of lactation or dairy calves. So you can feed premium hay to some of those other classes of livestock, but you're going to be overfeeding your cattle, which means one, your cattle or your livestock will likely gain weight and may become too heavy. Or you'll actually be wasting a lot of it. So it's important to consider your class of livestock when you're trying to figure out how good of quality hay that you either need to make or to buy. So there are several factors that are important when determining forage quality and hay. The first and most important is plant maturity. So as plants get older, their digestibility and crude protein decreases considerably. The graph here is of Bermuda grass over a 12 week period. And you can see that by week 12, it is only approximately 40% digestible and has only about 88% crude protein. Compared to four weeks, it is 65% digestible with an 18% crude protein. Now the caveat to this is you're going to be sacrificing some yield. So in this case, and you may have seen this graph before where you plot yield versus quality, we want to do shoot for that place where those two lines intersect. So in this case, for this particular scenario, it's going to be about six weeks. So as you can see here for Bermuda grass specifically, we recommend cutting every four to five weeks. That's the way to ensure the highest quality without sacrificing too much of our yield. Yield is important, and we want to make sure that we get our yield high enough to make it economical to cut, but not at the cost of our quality. So the next factor that is of moderate to high importance is actually our forage species and variety selection. So especially with perennial plants, the alfalfa Bermuda grass, the hairgrass, the choice that we may now may have effects for 10, 20, or even 30 years. We have stands of tall fescue in Alabama that are over 50 years old. So it's a long term investment with our annual species, it's not going to be as much obviously we could change our species and variety each year, depending on what we would like to do. But for our perennials, this is very important. We want to use the highest quality species that will persist in your environment, that will also meet the demands of the livestock you're growing for. An example I like to use alfalfa, alfalfa is probably the highest quality forage we can grow in one of the highest yielding, but it's not going to grow on the majority of soils in Alabama. It also requires a lot of management. Furthermore, many of the livestock in Alabama, alfalfa is going to be too high of quality. However, if you're producing paid for horses or dairy cattle, it could be worth the investment to establish alfalfa, given the extra cost because of the management and grow it because you'll be able to get more economic return on that. For most of our livestock species though picking something like Bermuda grass or even the hairgrass may be a better option. But you want to consider what species and variety will grow where you are. We won't want to establish a fescue hayfield in Mobile County, for example. Another thing is to consider that the more recent variety releases are typically the higher quality and higher yielding, but they're also more expensive. But a lot of times, especially with our perennial species, while the initial skulls cost may seem very daunting, it's worth the investment because remember this investment may be a multiple decade investment. So it's important to do that and consider that when you're making those choices. So when we choose our variety, we want to make sure we're doing an adaptable variety proven to our area. For example, in Bahia grass, we wouldn't want to establish coastal, or excuse me, Pensacola Bahia grass in North Alabama. But we might want to establish a Usain Mountain, which is a cull taller Bahia grass. Same thing with coastal Bermuda grass. You know, it's not, doesn't do well in North Alabama. So we want to make sure that what the variety we're choosing, we have information on its persistence where we are. Then as I mentioned, we want to match the site, the sole, the intended use, what type of livestock we're using, what is that class of livestock, and does this forage meet my needs. So is it high enough quality or is it too high quality? An example here to show you some varietal differences is ryegrass, and this is a gulf ryegrass compared to an early tetraploid. And you can see on the same date, planted the same day, the early tetraploid is actually headed out where the gulf is not yet. If you've overseeded a Bermuda grass hay field with ryegrass, you probably want the earlier maturing variety so you can cut it and get it off the field and not delay your Bermuda grass green up. If you've not done that, it may be beneficial to have the later maturing variety. So these are just the kinds of things you need to keep in mind. You can always contact your local extension office or your regional extension agent and we can help you make those decisions. So a lot of times you think forage quality is something that's going to be determined before harvest, but we actually have things that can affect forage quality after harvest. And the big one there is bale storage. This actually has a moderate effect on forage quality. We want to protect our bales from rainfall and weathering during storage. We get, in some places in Alabama, 55 inches to 60 inches of rain a year. So for hay that's stored outside, that's a massive amount of rain that would cause weathering on those bales. We're also very hot and very humid. These are all conditions that can reduce the forage quality of our bales if they're stored outside. So this table shows the difference in percent waste with different storage types. So if you do the traditional on the ground in a row with an area that's in poor drainage, you can have 30, 45, or even greater percent of waste. You can see the bales here, they're falling apart. Now these bales have been in the field for multiple years, but you can see how much weathering those would have compared to bale even that's two or three years old that was stored inside. Now, if we can't cover the bale, but we at least get it on gravel or on a pallet so it's off the ground and able to drain from the bottom, we can reduce that down to 10 to 30% wastage. Now if we put it on a stack pad on top of covering of the tarp, we can get that down to 5 to 8%. Now we'll say there is several producers I know in Alabama and Georgia as well that have been able to buy the vinyl billboard signs as a way of using a tarp to cover hay. They do degrade over time and they say they only last two to three years, but they're relatively inexpensive compared to buying a new tarp. So if you are needing to cover a lot of hay, it might be worthwhile to look into that as an option. Using a tarp has similar it's 5 to 8% waste and using a pole barn is only 2 to 5% waste so you're really going to protect that bale. $3 billion of hay is lost every year just from storing and feeding with in no regard to anything else. And a good economist once told me you're going to pay for your hay barn whether you build it or not. So just the amount of waste that you have, you will end up paying for that even though hay barns are seemingly very expensive. It's worth the initial investment especially if you're producing a lot of this high quality hay because you don't want to put all that effort into producing a high quality bale and then have it deteriorate over time. Now in a scenario where you may have not enough room in your barn, you want to put your lower quality hay outside. And you also want that to be the hay that you feed first so it's minimal time outside. So that's a way if you don't have enough barn space, you can get around making sure to protect your investment but be reasonable. So when we're putting our bale, especially if we're putting them outside, we want to make sure they're good dense bale. The denser the bale is the more it's going to reduce water infiltration. We want to put them in tight rows with their flat ends really tight. But the rows want to be about three feet apart so we can make sure there's good sunlight getting between the bale's rows so that it can evaporate and water is not sitting there. We also in a perfect world would have them on some kind of gravel or drainage material as well as on a slight slope so to increase water drainage. We want to not put them underneath trees because again any kind of shade is going to prevent any water from evaporating and the more water that sits there the more it's going to rot. And we also, you know, if possible we want to make sure that they're covered. Put them in a sunny location as well. So the next factor and this is one I think we're probably the most aware of as producers is rain during curing. We take a lot of effort to make sure that we don't get rain, you know, we always check the weather to make sure it's not going to rain or what the risk of rain might be. We do want to avoid cutting if there's a significant rainfall event so that's over a half an inch is predicted during curing. A lot of times in Alabama, especially either it be in the spring when we have spring showers or in the summer when there's always a 20% chance of pop up showers, it's not really feasible. So the good news is, is that rainfall doesn't have quite the effect on hay waste that we thought it did. So this is a study that looked at Bermuda grass and orchid grass hay that was rained on during curing while it was in lay down in the field. So in Bermuda grass, hey, they saw even up to three inches you only saw about 2% loss and dry matter. And that's because that's just in general going to be a more stimmy hay compared to orchid grass. But you can see at that half inch mark I just told you about you only had about 1% loss of dry matter, which is why we use that as kind of our rule of thumb. Now orchid grass, which is a more leafy high quality grass, we do see that we get a greater decrease in dry matter loss. So for that three inch rain now we're talking like 9% loss. But again, if we look at that half inch rain, we're talking three to 4%. Now, obviously we don't roll out of orchid grass in Alabama, but this just to give you some kind of idea about the effect of rainfall. Again, in my opinion, unless it's a major rainfall event, it's not that bad. Now we do want to make sure that if we do get rain that we tend and increase drying. So we want to leave the hay in the field the shortest amount of time is possible. That's not to say those practices aren't important. But it is something we don't want to necessarily sacrifice on maturity, which is a high importance, right? And delay harvest for a week or two for a small chance of rain. So the next factor is moisture at bailing. It kind of goes in with that last, you know, I was talking about the rain during curing. So we want to make sure our forage is dry to the appropriate moisture for round bells, those are going to be about 15%. And for square bells can be a little bit higher up to 18%. And this is important for a variety of reasons. So less than 10%, the hay may be brittle and dry, even grasshays. So we really don't want that it can become very dusty. So we want it there to be adequate moisture in storage. Hay will reach an equilibrium of about 12% moisture based on the ambient humidity. So again, similar to that, you have about 10 to 12%. So 10 to 15% is our recommended moisture. It has the least risk of fire and will go through the least amount of heat. All hay will sweat for the first three or so weeks after it's been bailed. That's normal. But we don't want that temperature to get over about 120. So from 16 to 20% moisture, we can mold without a preservative and there's a slight fire risk. So if for some reason you need to get your hay up a little wet, it might be worthwhile to look into a preservative so you can ensure that there's no fire risk or no overheating. Now 21 to 25%, you're likely going to get mold if you don't use a preservative and there's also a moderate hay fire risk. More than 25%, preservatives not going to really help you. So there's severe heat damage as well as a high fire risk. So that's definitely not where we want to be. So we recently put out a publication on hay fire risk and this was a table that we included in there. And again, I told you that hay will naturally go through a heat. So from 100 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, we don't want to, we don't have to worry about hay fire. There's nothing that needs to be done. There's no risk. So from 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, we want to at that point start to monitor our bell temperatures daily to make sure they're not getting any higher because there is a moderate risk of hay fire. From 140, we want to consider tearing our stacks down, continue to monitor the bell temperature because there is a high risk. Now by tearing the stacks down, we're going to get that out of the barn. We're going to hopefully minimize our risk of loss of the entire lot of hay as well as the barn and any equipment that might be in the barn. We also will let air circulate that hopefully will alleviate some of that built up temperature. From 150 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, this is very dangerous. At this point you want to call the fire department, bring them out, and you do not want to unstack the hay until they arrive, because as you unstack the hay, you can actually cause a fire. So this is an extreme risk. From 160 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, we'll probably have smoldering in pockets and hot spots. The gases will ignite once the hay is exposed to air. So again, call the fire department, don't touch the hay until the fire department gets there. And then at 212, which is the boiling temperature, this is a point of no return. At this point the hay is likely already on fire, or it's going to catch fire any moment. You want to call the fire department if you haven't already, but this is where we get the scenario you see in the picture up there. And unfortunately, a lot of times this happens deep in the stack, and we're not aware of it. So if there's any risk of hay fire, it is best to leave the bells outside until they go through that four to five weeks sweat, and then put them in the barn. That's one way to avoid it if there's any chance of your your hay being too green or too wet when you put it up. So there are also unseen consequences of this heat. Now, again, I told you about 220 degrees Fahrenheit, we don't really worry about it above that we do worry about hay risk, but it may it may just kind of stay at that temperature and then go down. But even at our target moisture, we're still going to get a sweat and that said that's two to three weeks. As the moisture is driven off, he is given off and the dry matter decreases. For every 1% decrease in moisture, you get 1% decrease in dry matter. So moisture tends to equilibrate about 12%, but this driving off will actually cause proteins to end up being indigestible. So your usable protein as your heat increases actually goes down. Think of it like you burn something in the oven. Your palatability goes down, but also your digestibility is going to go down because it's going to be charred. So when those proteins become heat damaged, they bind together and bind to other things in the forage and are not available. So you can see here, your dry matter intake take actually increases a little bit, but then eventually is going to drop off, but your digestibility of your protein is going to drop off precipitably as well. So the last factor that is important in forage quality that has relatively low importance is fertilization. We always want to fertilize based on soil test recommendations for those specific forage crops and in hay fields we do want to test every year as we're removing those nutrients off the field and either feeding them somewhere else or selling them. So it's important to soil test every year. We want to apply our recommended rates for P, K and N. Nitrogen is usually the thing we think about the most of getting the most bang for our buck, but phosphorus and potassium are also very important. If we're using poultry litter problem and we've gotten enough phosphorus, but potassium like in Bermudagrass especially tends to be very deficient and can cause yield problems. So we always want to make sure that we put out enough of our phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen. For some of our hay crops like alfalfa, you may even have some micronutrients like boron or molybdenum that are required. So that's important to know. And so when you're picking your species, if there are any micronutrient requirements. If you are using poultry litter, you want to test that for analysis because the amount of nitrogen, especially that's there is going to be dependent on how the chicken litter was managed in the house. How it was stored after it was collected at the house, whether it's freshly out of the house or it's been composted and what kind of poultry were in the house. There's several factors. And even if you've gotten it from the same farm, different conditions can change that from time to time. So it's a relatively inexpensive test that can save you a lot of money. It's in a lot of states, they actually require you to test it now. But even if you're getting another byproduct, you always want to test it for its nutrient analysis before you apply it. So if you need more information on anything forage related, please email us at alabamaforages.com. Our website is alabamaforages.com or you can get there from our main cooperative extension web pages, which is aces.edu. We also are on Facebook and Twitter. You can see our handles there. We also have a monthly newsletter. So if you haven't signed up for our e-newsletter, please feel free to do that. Just send me an email at alabamaforages.aubern.edu. Thank you.