S4E21: Forage Fertilization After First Cutting

Recorded: 5/11/26 

Rising fertilizer prices are top of mind for producers this spring. As we approach first cutting, how should you be thinking about fertility management to ensure successful hay production throughout the season? Join us for a discussion with Andrew Frankenfield as he shares strategies to help you maximize your fertility inputs and get the most out of your hay crop.

Hosts: Justin Brackenrich and Dwane Miller, Penn State Extension
Guest(s): Andrew Frankenfield, Penn State Extension

Links:
First-Cut Forage Considerations
Manure N-P-K Economic Value Calculator
University of Georgia Fertilizer Calculator

Photo credit: Dwane Miller

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Transcript

Dwane Miller (00:18)
Hi everybody, welcome back to the Agronomy Highlights podcast. I'm your host for this session, Dwayne Miller, and I'm here with Justin Brackenrich. Justin, how are you today?

Justin Brackenrich (00:28)
I'm doing well, Dwayne. we've got some sun, we've got some dry soils today. You know, it feels like we're actually getting into spring. It's, what, May 11th when we're recording this, so no reason to not be anything but optimistic today.

Dwane Miller (00:42)
Yeah, we're about to turn the corner, I think, on some cooler, wetter weather. And boy, think Plander's going to be rolling here real soon. But for this episode, we're going to try to get some real timely information. And like Justin said, we're recording this on May 11th. So what's our topic for today? We are going to be talking first cut hay, fertilizer,

and economics and boy did we bring a ringer in for our guest today, Justin. Who do we have?

Justin Brackenrich (01:12)
Yeah, so we've got our farm business sub team leader and hay expert Andrew Frankenfield. He's a friend of the show. If you think back, he's done a lot of hay conversations with us. He's discussed rented ground and the economics of rented versus owned ground. We're very lucky to have him. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Frankenfield (01:28)
Well good morning guys, thanks for having me. Those are pretty big shoes to fill so I'll do my best here. That was pretty flattering.

Justin Brackenrich (01:35)
well, you know, we look at this like, think contextually, or maybe how we brought all this up is fertilizer has been like just every day it moves, right? If every seven, 10 days, you're getting a new quote. Prices are very high, but we've also been in kind of a weird cycle with the weather and hay right? We got to have it. Our first cuttings, our second cuttings have been kind of haves and have nots because of moisture and heat the last couple of years. so

What do do now? Right? Like, how do we find this balance of what we need for hay to feed our livestock? No one wants to get rid of cows, right? You know, until we have to. So how do we generate the right amount economically? And that's why we've got Andrew here to help walk us through making these decisions.

Dwane Miller (02:16)
I think you bring up a great point. Let's set the stage first. We've come out of a winter with some pretty escalated hay prices. Some folks that have been feeding forage, especially, to your point, Justin, with cattle, earlier than normal because of lack of growth on pasture going into fall and winter season.

So we've got escalated prices in hay, we've got this fertilizer market that's just going through the roof. And now to boot, boy, a couple of weeks ago, we had a pretty good freeze and frost event here that did a little bit of damage to some of our hay grass stands as we're driving out, looking around at some of this. as a hay farmer myself, I'm kind of scratching my head going, all right, where are we in all this? What is my first cutting gonna look like?

I know I'm probably two weeks away from when I would start to normally target a harvest, but boy boy, I'm looking for some optimism here. So that's kind of where I would set the stage. Any other comments guys from your corners of the state?

Andrew Frankenfield (03:28)
You left one thing out, fuel prices. Right? So now it's another thorn in our side, right? It's across the field. Yeah. Yeah.

Dwane Miller (03:31)
Yeah.

Justin Brackenrich (03:35)
We went from the big three to the big

⁓

Dwane Miller (03:40)
makes for interesting conversation and coffee shop talk and after church yesterday. It just seems like those conversations lend themselves to where we are right now. So I thought it's relevant in a lot of our minds. So I think it's a great idea to talk about some of this stuff. So where do we want to start? And maybe it's how do we figure out

When do we pull the trigger? When's the best time that we should be thinking about taking that first cutting of hay off?

Andrew Frankenfield (04:13)
like you said, Dwayne, you're probably a couple weeks away from when you typically start making hay, right? And what do usually look for? it Memorial Day weekend? Is it the stage of the growth? Is it the height? What you expect for tonnage? Is it the amount of time it takes from when you start to when you finish? Because you know you can't do all the hay on the farm in one weekend, right? So we're seeing shorter grass. You know, the heights are down a little bit, but the maturity is

is there. We were in Lancaster last week and we saw tall fescue heads emerging. So I think the biggest question is what are you feeding that hay to? Are you feeding beef cows which don't require the highest protein and nutrient value? you feeding young stock equine? It all depends where that hay is going.

Dwane Miller (05:03)
So trying to figure out your market for that, how you might be a great first step in all of that. And a comment you just made is, can't do this all at once, right? So I know from my standpoint, I look back at a few years back, trying to remember what year it was, I'm sitting on the corn planter and I'm planting corn.

And it was a beautiful stretch of dry weather and the neighbors are out there taking first cutting orchard grass off. And I'm like, boy, what should I be doing? You know, should I? And just like that, the weather turned unfavorable for haymaking. And there, there, there I sat, understanding that oftentimes it can be weather conditions that, dictate what we want to do. And we just got into a conversation or

If farmers aren't in tune to the weather, there's something going wrong, right? And I think everybody's looking at the calendar going, wow, after Friday, we're gonna turn drier, we're gonna turn warmer. And where does our attention lie? And that's a human resource issue sometimes is we don't have enough bodies to fill the seats on those tractors to get all of those things done.

Andrew Frankenfield (06:18)
And what's your primary crop that you raise, right? are you a corn and soybean farmer and then you make hay when that's done? Or are you a hay farmer? You know, those things come into play. I always stress to folks, know, if you're growing hay, if that's your primary focus, you've got to be managing that just as diligent as you would a corn and soybean crop, you know, doing your soil test, know what your pH is and

and your fertility levels, but sometimes some people are like, well, hay's a sideline. My primary job is to grow row crops.

Justin Brackenrich (06:51)
I've heard that from the dairy farmers maybe more particularly, right? Like if you're in alfalfa or you're in triticale or something and you're planting something else, you got to stop that plan or get off, switch gears and cut hay because that's a big component of what you're doing. think maybe for us or people that are looking more at the beef markets or things like that, if you are planting row crops, that becomes a little easier because it's not as much, right? I mean, unless you get to bigger scale operation and things, but where I'm at in Washington,

you know, it's a few acres, 50 acres, you know, at the most on a lot of these operations for beef. You have a little bit more flexibility in that. But Andrew, like generally, when is the best time to cut hay? Like, I guess maturity wise, and we talk a lot about maturities. I hope everyone can follow this, but if not, we'll put a link to understanding maturity windows and stuff in hay. So where would you think that sweet spot actually is?

Andrew Frankenfield (07:42)
Generally, it's in that early heading stage. But in reality, it becomes late heading. Sometimes it gets into seed production. Certainly, you want to get it before it starts to decline and turn brown. Last year was a prime example where it just rained and rained and rained in May. And there were tough windows to get even in June. early heading, you're kind of maximizing that yield to some extent, but also keeping that.

nutritional value in a good area. So typically in say southern tier of Pennsylvania, late May is a time to get going. Certainly it goes into early June. But from when you make that first cutting, think that sets up your second cutting and even a third. You know, if you don't get that first cutting off until late June, you're probably not going to get three cuttings on that field in that year.

Dwane Miller (08:31)
Yeah, that's an excellent point. And I just go back to what you had said before about thinking about what is your primary market for that hay. So I go back to that scenario where honestly, here we are. I'll admit it's May 11th. I've got half my beans in. I have not started corn yet. So when that weather breaks on Friday,

whatever, whenever I can get in that field, my primary market is beef cattle and horse hay. So I'm not feeding young stock. I'm not getting into the dairy market there. So I might focus on planting some corn first and not getting on that haybine and letting that hay stretch out a little bit. Sometimes it's a little tougher to dry.

some of that first cutting hay that one if it's if it's made early right so

Andrew Frankenfield (09:24)
And you mentioned species, like orchard grass, that's going to be one of your first ones to target. If you've got a mixed grass with fescue in there, that's a finer hay. can maybe mature little later and still maintain some quality. orchard grass fields, if they're a pure stand, they should be your first target to go after.

Justin Brackenrich (09:43)
So I think that's a good point that we kind of miss is predominantly we see mixed grass stands. And, unless you're specifically targeting a Timothy market or something like that, right? It's hard to always balance when the brome comes out versus the orchard versus all these others. And you had said, you start at that early heading, by the time you get your ducks in a row, everything's greased. You know, hopefully we're doing that stuff through the winter, but all the bugs are worked out. The weather cooperates.

If you're ready to go at early heading and maybe you start somewhere, by the time you get to the end of what you've got to do, you still don't have this terrible quality. Hay right. And so one of my favorite sayings that I've learned in this job is you have to start before you can finish. You know, some days if you're early, you're early on one field to put you on time to the end, right? If you wait till mid to late heading for the first one and you've got 10 fields to get around, now you're really pushing the envelope on whether it's good quality or not. So I think, I think that's a great starting point.

Andrew Frankenfield (10:39)
and I just want to reinforce that because everybody's so hesitant to start too early, you know? Wow, it's still pretty young. The heads are just coming out. Well, if it takes you six or eight baling windows to do all your hay and you don't know how many windows you're going to have in the next month, it might be July 4th as you're wrapping up first cutting and you're ready to roll into second cutting next week on the stuff that you started with.

It's okay to start a tad early because you know, you're not going to be done after the first round of hay make

Dwane Miller (11:10)
I think everybody should be in tune with how many bailing windows or times it's going to take you to get through that whatever first cutting. And it's a great place to start. Start thinking about it. Put your ducks in a row and go from there. That's a great consideration.

Justin Brackenrich (11:30)
So Andrew, we've kicked around, let's just kind of make this a timeline. let's say it's the end of May, right? I think we've missed maybe our fertilization window for our first cutting hay. my feeling now would be as we sit here mid-May, the dyes kind of been cast on our first cutting.

Andrew Frankenfield (11:49)
Just

had that question on Saturday. Okay. Don't fertilize first cutting. I said, no, I said, I really don't think you should. It's not like fertilizer is cheap. That hay is already starting to head. He's not the earliest guy out there to make hay, but even so I hate to see him spend whatever it is, a hundred dollars an acre on fertilizer and really should just be cutting it in a week and starting over. So I second cutting.

Justin Brackenrich (11:53)
What was your answer?

I

that small grains are different than hay, A lot of research that they've done on triticale and rye and things that are being chopped, know, originally we had this idea that if we didn't get fertilizer put out at GreenUp, we were going to waste it. And that's kind of been pulled back to this idea that if it's between GreenUp and maybe elongation, there's really not a difference of how that nutrients used, right? Once you start to see that head coming up and you transition into boot, now we start to see things change.

So we do have that window, but what they see is once you start that elongation, once you start to see that plant really stretch up, now you're not going to get the full utilization to that.

And you're better off, in our case, that's true, investing in second cutting, not a delayed or a late application on first.

Andrew Frankenfield (12:59)
Now, if he said, you know, I'm not going to make that hay until the end of June. I guess you could increase some protein in that, that hay, but is it with the current economics? Boy, I'd hate to invest a lot in that cutting. so it basically is saying I'm going to old hay anyway. Yeah. Is it worth it? I don't think it is really.

Dwane Miller (13:17)
Yeah, I agree with you. think I'd encourage him to, OK, let's take that cutting off whenever we can, focus on second cutting, and start moving from there.

Justin Brackenrich (13:28)
So we've kind of established we're not going to, you we're past the first cutting window for fertilizing. Let's say everything goes well. We've timed everything up nice. We're looking at the end of May, 1st to June, Memorial Day weekend. We have a wonderful weather. Everybody's cookouts are great and everybody's making hay. We hit June 1st. I think we could say we're going to have a middle of the road harvest for first cutting, right? Even with fertilization, we've talked about frost damage. We've been dry places. We've had some heat. We've had some cold.

I don't expect this to be a barn filler for our first cutting hay. And so we're setting that stage. What considerations do we start making immediately after that? Is it fertilizer? Is it weed management? Is it cutting strategies? Where does your mind go to get a good second cutting?

Andrew Frankenfield (14:12)
Yes. It's all-

Justin Brackenrich (14:13)
Okay,

all of them. That's right. Back to the triple threat. Everything's got to happen.

Andrew Frankenfield (14:18)
Well, I mean, a lot of it hinges on moisture, right? I we are in a, don't know what level drought, but we're in level two or whatever. And even to our west towards Lancaster, they're even more dry. so that's, that's always in the back of your mind. you know, we, certainly need the moisture to push that regrowth. but with that, that you mentioned, you know, we might have an average first cutting, we might need below average. So is hay going to be short is in the back of my mind.

because we're kind of coming off of a winter where hay's in demand, values are up. So we know that fertilizing pays. And we'll probably talk about that a little more in detail. So my mind is get that fertilizer ordered. I'd like to have that buggy there within a week after I bale so I can set that next crop up for success.

You mentioned weed control. So I use satellite or Prowl and we talk about that as a, you know, to control foxtail in our second and third cutting. that, I raise hay as well as, help educate people on hay. But there's a first application that goes on at Greenup and then you come back with another application of satellite. that's going to happen in my fields right after first cutting.

and then the fertilizer application and then hope we have, you know, sufficient rains for the next month, which is a wild card.

Dwane Miller (15:43)
And you're usually, you're targeting a three cut system when you raise, correct?

Andrew Frankenfield (15:48)
Correct. Yep, I am. then generally in this southern tier of Pennsylvania, I think that's a good thing to target. If you wait too long, say you make first cutting the first of June and you wait till Memorial or Labor Day to do second cutting, you've got all kinds of junk coming. Grass is meant to be cut on a five to six week cycle. So it's almost like Memorial Day.

right after the 4th of July and then Labor Day, can almost bale around those holidays.

Dwane Miller (16:17)
And oftentimes, you see, we'll, we'll let that maybe you let that second cutting out there a little bit too long in orchard grass. like to tend not like to, but we tend to see some of these diseases come in and just take over that stand. and in a matter of a week, week and a half, can go from looking really good to looking pretty poor. And our recommendation is always, right, take that, take that growth off. Let's and let's start again. So.

exactly what you're saying. you have yourself in tune to a cutting schedule and in that six-week window, it's time to cut, get it off, and set yourself up for more regrowth.

talk a little bit about fertilizer considerations. And with prices, with what they are in fertility right now, everybody's scratching their head saying, all right, how much fertilizer do I throw at this hay crop? So if we take off that first cutting, like Justin said, how should we plan for a fertilizer application for second cutting?

Andrew Frankenfield (17:22)
So all comes back to a soil test, right? I mean, I'm sure it's a broken record on this podcast, but it is crucially important. So knowing what your pH is, but especially your P and K, right? So if you're in the optimum range, generally you're not going to see a decreased yield if you don't add additional. So you can sort of mine them down a little bit, but you got to replace it at some point.

In many cases, you don't have to put that on after every cutting, but I like to be in a replacement strategy. So we're not having a huge fertilizer bill one year and the next year kind of trying to take it easy. definitely nitrogen after every cutting. Depending on your phosphorus levels, you may or may not need phosphorus, but likely you're going to need potassium. And then don't forget about sulfur. That fits in there throughout the year possibly.

trying to get a fertilizer that fits the needs of your field. And then think about how much do you intend to grow in that next ⁓ harvest? Are you looking at a one ton harvest per second cutting, maybe a ton and a half? And generally it takes 50 pounds of nitrogen, actual nitrogen per ton of forage harvested, about 15 pounds of P205, and roughly 50 pounds of potassium or

using potash as that source. So a mixed or a blend fertilizer is good. Maybe you just go with urea after first cutting because your P and K are where they need to be. But it all sort of depends on what the field history is there.

Justin Brackenrich (18:47)
I think this all changes. One of the things that you talked about was soil testing, right? one of the harder things for me to do is to make a recommendation without a soil test or for something that's below optimum, right? And that's the other one that comes in a lot is when we see these like high fertilizer years or

It's been this slow drawdown, right? Five years ago, it made four tons. Now it's barely making two and a half. What are we going to do, right? And I think that's where that removal number comes in, right? How do we get to that point? Like, how do we look at this hay and say, yep, I'm going to have one ton of hay at my next yield. I want to use that. Because we're not going to buy that off the shelf, right?

maybe there should be a standard blend. We'll make our plea to the fertilizer companies that there should just be a three to one to three ratio hay blend out there commercially available, but there isn't. And so where do you go from there? How do you make that contact? What do you do?

Andrew Frankenfield (19:37)
Yes, oftentimes when I work with other growers, I'll say, well, check with the fertilizer supplier that you have. What are my options? And then once they get those options in the prices, obviously, and then you've got to look at what is the fertility concentration in there, right? Is it a 30 % nitrogen? What's the phosphorus, potassium level? And then to compare those nutrients, those fertilizers versus the nutrient value versus the price.

It's almost something you have to walk through with an individual at the time, right? You know, is that 20-10-10 product the right thing to put down or, triple 17 or what are the options there? And you got to think in pounds of actual nutrient, right? Urea being 46%, if you put down 100 pounds of urea, you're getting 46 pounds of nitrogen.

That's kind of a minimum, if you ask me. You got to put at least 100 pounds of urea down to supply what would take one ton of hay off. Then you have the discussion as well, do you get that fertilizer treated? with the price of fertilizer now, it's like, especially urea, it's like, I'd use treated urea because if you don't get rain for a few days, you can lose a good percentage of that. You don't see it, but...

⁓ It's a good investment.

Dwane Miller (20:58)
So comes down to knowing the economics of, number one, what's available at our local fertilizer market, and then trying to drill down and actually calculate the per unit cost of each one of those nutrients that we're going to be putting on that crop. And one thing that I think is valuable to us is

hey, whether we're scouting for leafhoppers and alfalfa or whether we're doing some calculations here for fertilizing our second cutting grass hay, one of the biggest contributing factors is what is that ton of hay actually worth, right? And there is a huge range in value of what that ton of hay could potentially be worth to us.

Andrew Frankenfield (21:46)
Yeah, it's really in what's your market, right? So for me, I'm selling horse hay. So first of all, they demand mold-free hay, no poisonous weeds in there, right? But we can get 300 plus a ton for that hay. And then the second cutting, third cutting, those would be even higher value. So to me, to invest, you know,

$100 an acre even in fertilizer still is a worthwhile investment to get that return on that higher quality material. If I was just feeding beef cattle, I probably wouldn't be pushing it quite as hard, but you certainly have to have a reasonable yield, a few ton per acre per year, because you're going to run your equipment over that with the investment you have in that equipment, the time that you have. Justin has some

data from other research projects, but if you don't fertilize at all, you're going to be at half or a third of the yield of a well-fertilized field. And don't discount the cost of the time running that equipment, the wear and tear on that equipment, and just the ownership cost of that equipment that you have.

Justin Brackenrich (22:50)
I think one of the really cool resources is ⁓ the progressive farmer DTN website. So if you've got a local fertilizer company, great, you can call in and stuff, but there's a writer with DTN and progressive farmer that about every two weeks or so and I'm not sure exactly where this data aggregates. Someone listening probably says like, you know, learn your facts, but they're giving us kind of a national aggregation of

of Dap, Map, Potash, and Urea on what those prices are. And so, I think like with the internet and the knowledge and the things that we can talk about, this is not as challenging as it used to be, right? It used to have to, you were price shopping and going around. And I think as the price has gone up, I don't see as much difference between suppliers anymore either, right? When things were a little lower, you saw a little bit different. It was maybe more advantageous to call three or four different places to get numbers.

I bet now with the prices there are the margins are narrowed up on these guys selling it. And I bet you're within 5 % if you call around to 20 different places, right? And so this information's here, it's available, it's pen to paper, back in napkin stuff. But one of the conversations we had fully got on here was if you're selling hay, is this a social experience? Right? Do you like people coming to the farm? Do you want them to visit? Or is this a money making thing? And if you're not,

doing the math of what it's costing you to make every bale that you sell, you're already behind where you should be to try to increase your profits. And I think that's the name of the game is profitability. I joke with my farmers that if I'm not helping them make money, they're not going to be here and I'm gonna have to get a real job one day. you know, that's what we're here to do is make money and make this profitable for everybody.

Andrew Frankenfield (24:28)
It's a business. I mean it has to be a bit if you just want to make hay for the hobby fine, but even that hobby Yeah, it takes time away from the family. It takes resources from the from the budget within the household At least break even for sure, but if you don't know if you never put those numbers on paper So a plug for the Agronomy Guide we we myself and a co-worker put together the budgets in the Agronomy Guide and We're putting them together. We're going

Yeah, these are these are tough to pencil out some places, right? So but you got to put a value on on everything from from line to establishment cost, land cost. Even if you own the land, you've got taxes on that land. If you're renting it, you've got a more known number. And then you've you've got other expenses just like, you know, your equipment maintenance and stuff that you've got to consider what breakdowns might come.

often times we can figure out what it cost to put it in a bale But then you got to think what's the cost to bring that bale home put it in a shed Store it handle it, you know, maybe to haul it out and deliver it So just getting that bale made is one cost But you know till it actually gets in the the mouth of the animal wherever it's going being fed to your own animals or sold There's a lot of variables in those expenses

Dwane Miller (25:46)
So let's go back, let's stay on fertility. mean, boy, you're making me sweat here. A lot of those expenses you're talking about made me think about, oh boy.

Justin Brackenrich (25:57)
If this was a video, you'd see how red Dwayne's face is going on.

Dwane Miller (26:01)
Andrew, can you kind of lead me through some things to think about for calculating some of our fertilization costs here for second cutting given some current pricing?

Andrew Frankenfield (26:14)
Sure. So urea is, let's just say, $1,000 a ton. Yep. You could argue it's 900, or someone might say it's 11. So what I do is think about how many pounds of nitrogen are in that ton of fertilizer, right? So we know urea is 46 % nitrogen. So doing that math, it's 920 pounds of nitrogen in that ton.

Dwane Miller (26:19)
I think that's a safe bet.

Andrew Frankenfield (26:37)
If you're paying $1,000 for that, that comes out to $1.08 per unit of nitrogen. You can do the same thing for phosphorus and potassium, but let's just stay on nitrogen for a minute. If we know we want to 50, 60 units or actual pounds of nitrogen.

Dwane Miller (26:55)
shoot, I'll just say, okay, I'll shoot for a ton for second cutting. So.

Andrew Frankenfield (26:59)
So 50 units, we'll use that. So 50 times 109, you're roughly at what, 60 bucks an acre on just the nitrogen that you're supplying. That's uncomfortable, right? that's really darn high. So you might say, okay, my phosphorus potassium is okay, or I put potash on in the fall, and maybe I'll put potash on later. So you're at a minimum of at least

like 110 pounds of urea to give you 50 units, roughly. But if you want to add phosphorus, we don't have a sole source of phosphorus. So one is DAP. DAP is an 18 % nitrogen, 46 % phosphorus, and no potassium. So you kind of back out the nitrogen value of that 18%.

That's roughly, there's roughly 360 pounds of nitrogen in that DAP per ton, which at a dollar nine is $391, which leaves you roughly $500 of actual phosphorus. So the kind of roundabout answer to that is phosphorus is running like 50 some cents a unit or a pound. So that's...

actually not as bad as what we thought. But it's still, you know, we don't need as much phosphorus to apply. So if we put on 15 to 20 units of that, you know, you're looking at roughly what, $20 or no, $10 or so. And then the big one that you go in any hayfield, most times you're going to find low potassium. They can always use potash because it takes just as much potash as it does

Nitrogen or potassium as it does nitrogen. So if you're not applying potash at least once or twice a year, you probably should be Now the thankfully that price has not going quite as crazy as the nitrogen price That's that's in the $500 a ton range So, you know encourage folks to add that as well. It's only like 40 ish 45 cents an actual pound And again, you need just as much

potassium as you do nitrogen per ton of material. there you're looking at, know, so if you're going to apply a hundred pounds of potash, which is 60%, you're looking at what $30 a ton. So you're, you're now you're getting up to a hundred dollars an acre in that fertilizer after first cutting.

Dwane Miller (29:23)
Yep. that's as I'm doing some napkin stuff, right? As you're talking and I'm like, yeah, we're at a hundred dollar fertilizer cost here for a one ton yield on second cutting.

Justin Brackenrich (29:36)
I've done some work with treatment costs and rates on fertilizer. But one thing that maintains the same is, I know we're talking about fertility, but something else to think about is the equipment, right? And it's $6 fuel that Andrew alluded to in the beginning. A lot of times we use custom survey rates that come from Maryland or New York or Ohio. Quick math, you're looking at about another 58 bucks a ton.

Equipment costs off of that right now that includes fertilizer that includes, you know The tractor to mow at the tractor to Ted at the tractor to rake its tractor to bale it And if you really kind of start equating this stuff out You're looking if you've got an 850 pound bale you're looking at $55 a bale for break-even costs Now, you know, it's always good change per operation right and you can scale that up and down maybe your equipment you think is less but

I think that's something we all have to kind of come to grips with when we start thinking about the price or the selling or the storage, you storage is another fee for these things, right? It's getting quite expensive.

Andrew Frankenfield (30:34)
Yeah. But you're going to run that equipment over a 500 pound per acre yield or, you know, 2,500 pounds of material on second cutting. that's the other thing that you do if you're investing in some fertilizer. You're going to have more reward for that same trips across the field. And ⁓ then hopefully you'll have a higher value product and more of it. Because yeah, it's this

Economics doesn't work at $150 a ton second cutting. You need 250 a ton second cutting.

Justin Brackenrich (31:08)
Yeah, so one thing I want to plug here is we can all sit here and we can rattle off these numbers about buy units and stuff. And I know that when I talk to producers on the phone that are kind of aware of what's going on and I start running into the units versus the pound of fertilizer, it gets a little murky. University of Georgia has an excellent fertilizer calculator, right? So you can put in a recommendation. It's going to give you some default type.

Fertilizer so I'm looking at it. You know, there's urea. There's ammonium nitrate map DAP podash triple super and you can actually plug the prices in from that DTN in and then it's gonna spit out what your best option is right and it's gonna subtract the 18 % nitrogen from that DAP off of what your urea needs or if you want 20 units of sulfur versus through ammonium sulfate that's gonna subtract off and it's gonna give you

the recommendation as pounds and as price. And so don't think you have to do all this on your own. Don't think if this is something that sounds incredibly complicated, again, use the tools we have available via the internet, right? And take advantage of this as a learning experience or a very eye-opening experience, I think maybe for some of us. So we'll throw that in the show notes as an option for you to kind of check that one out.

Dwane Miller (33:35)
Justin, something that I want you to comment on is some of the work that you've done. Was it last year on your nitrogen studies? can just give the listeners just a brief synopsis of what that involved and any takeaways

Justin Brackenrich (33:51)
Sure. kind of quickly, what we looked at was ESN and urea. So, ESN is a polymerized product with a slow release. Can we do that effectively as one treatment in the spring compared to the idea of split applying, which we would offer up is the best management practice, right? It's 50 units, 25, 25 after each cutting. And we compared that to nothing, right?

What about this management practice of we rent a piece of ground, we make hay on it, we never put fertilizer, we never put lime, but it's cheap, we've got it, what are we gonna get? And inevitably, what we kind of found when we looked at this is when you're doing nothing, it's not just the quality of hay that's lower, right? If you're not putting nitrogen out there, your protein's gonna be down. You would be shocked at the speciation of grass and legume changes.

when you go from 30 parts per million potassium to 50 or 75 or 150, Sidebar is so many people think they need to reseed their hay when their fertility is low. Not really, we just need to improve fertility and all of these things often show up. But what we found was you can't afford to not fertilize, right? If you're talking about just a cost per ton, I've got it pulled up.

Farmer management, where we looked at this idea of doing nothing. All we had was equipment costs. We produced an average of 1.3 tons of hay per acre, cost us $104 a ton. Where we split applied or where we added nitrogen to this, we produced 3.8 tons, so three times more, for 102 or $103. So it was actually costing us less per acre to produce three times the amount of hay.

And where this really kind of resonated to me was this idea of I got more livestock, people are retaining more ownership of cattle right now. How am I going to get enough hay ground? Now I got to cover 200 acres or 300 acres. We fertilize, we can cover a third of that, have a better quality and a better forage.

Hopefully that wasn't too laundry in two minutes.

Andrew Frankenfield (35:54)
That's

huge. it shows what I'm trying to get across on a given day, every day. It's like, yes, you're going to spend more money, but it will return more per acre. You don't have to have as many acres. I did a similar comparison. Two tons yield, no fertilizer, two cuttings. The cost per ton is about $150 a ton to do that for everything.

But then if you get five tons and you do a full fertilization process with three cuttings, sort of a higher management system, your cost per tons, 185, but your return is over $600 an acre compared to barely breaking even. you do have to have a higher price on that hay, but it will fetch and deserve a higher.

value because of the quality that's there. Instead of being the beef cow maintenance hay at 6 % protein, you can get into some better equine market or even dairy quality, depending on what your area is.

Dwane Miller (37:04)
So as your management style changes with some of this, your marketing strategy can change. Yeah. And it can be that kind of a snowball rolling down the hill. But the bottom line is you're going to get out of it. What what you're going to put into it. Now we need we need the weather to cooperate and some other factors to line up. But in general, there is still merit to to putting the fertility there to to produce

an economic reasonable yield.

Andrew Frankenfield (37:34)
Dwane and I were just in one of our plots last week at the research farm. we were looking at just nitrogen versus no nitrogen and the color of the forage. the green, I mean, you know, it's going to be much higher quality forage and the density in the first cutting, unfertilized. You look down, you can still see your shoe tops, right? And in the fertilized areas, it's thick. It's going to take longer to dry.

Justin Brackenrich (37:34)
Go ahead, sorry.

Dwane Miller (37:59)
We talked about exactly, okay, we're going to start to target our first cutting here and we're going, well, yeah, we have two days of sunshine this coming week and we could probably get that stuff dry that was not even fertilized because the yield just isn't there. But boy, where this lush stuff is, it's going to take us a little bit, a little bit of time.

Andrew Frankenfield (38:20)
there's often resistance to say, if it doesn't rain, I'm not going to get that return on that fertilizer. there's some truth to that, but we had a dry spring and there's night and day difference between that. So you've got to have the fertility there to push whatever, you know, moisture we get. But I think even in a drier situation, fertility certainly improves that yield.

Justin Brackenrich (38:43)
The last thing I guess I have to add, think we've covered a lot of ground here on these ideas, but one of the concepts I've really been trying to push is that we've got to quit thinking about hay as a per acre basis, right? If you're growing corn or soybeans, you don't think about how much money did I make or lose per acre of corn? Maybe you do, right? But once we start thinking about commodities, it becomes a bushel per acre And when we think about hay, not every acre is created equal.

Right, and if we start assessing this as well, I need 20 acres of hay to produce the need that I have if I cut it twice. I think we really need to start switching to the weight of our bales and the ton of production we're having. And that's when we can shift that mindset to understanding different fields, different operations, different needs. All the things we talked about right here is when do we cut? How do we fertilize? When do we spray? Because it is a commodity. And once we get to that point,

Now these numbers start to make a little bit more sense.

Andrew Frankenfield (39:38)
You hit another great topic. Are you keeping track? Do you even know how many pounds of forage that field made last year? Or per cutting? You don't have to run every load across a scale, keeping track of bale counts, average bale weights, and knowing at the end of the year, then you can say, okay, my yield was 3.8 tons or it was only 2.5 or whatever it might be.

Yeah, knowing just writing down how many bales you harvested and weigh in a few of them so you know where your stand is

Dwane Miller (40:14)
And that can be, like you just mentioned, the difference 2.8 to 3.5. And gosh, I can tell you, Andrew, I don't know about you, but when you're making hay, boy, it's busy. And everybody's going in every different direction. But if it's nothing more than just hopping off the tractor, looking at the bale count of that particular field, and

and either having a notepad right there or jotting it, putting a note in your phone or something just to get that idea of what you've got. Because from a marketing perspective, you know, that can be so valuable when somebody says, you know what, that load of hay you just brought, I really like that. how much more you have? Well, you can go back in your record. yeah, that was from this field.

Yeah, I can get you two more loads of that. That's pretty much identical to it.

Andrew Frankenfield (41:06)
And to find it in the storage is the other challenge.

Dwane Miller (41:09)
Yeah, that can be another difficult piece. Any final comments from either of you guys? Like you said, Justin, I think we covered quite a bit of ground. I think we are turning the corner here and we're going to be ready to cut pretty darn soon. But any last comments on fertilizing after a first cutting?

Andrew Frankenfield (41:27)
I'm excited about it. mean, we've yet to get the Discbine out of the barn, but it's going to be time to go. I know it's nerve wracking with the prices of things, but I think the more you plug in some numbers and push the pencil a little bit, it still does pay to put fertilizer on, even at the prices we are at. I think the worst thing you can do is not purchase any and

and just hope that somehow you'll get the yield that you expect.

Justin Brackenrich (41:54)
Maybe it's just my optimistic attitude by default. ⁓ But I think over the last few years, we've seen a lot of kind of challenging situations, whether it's been weather or price of things that we're selling, whether we're talking commodities, maybe it's been purchasing price of inputs. maybe this is like said, maybe it's just optimism, but it often feels like we make a choice or we make a decision that we wouldn't make in a perfect year, right? Vis-a-vis we've got

Hay is in a shortage. I'm seeing more people consider summer annuals than they ever had before. corn prices were not great. Inputs were high. They're looking at varieties. They're thinking about changing herbicide programs and tactics like they never would have before. I think while this fertilizer situation is not great, it's going to present us with an opportunity to dig into this and understand things like we probably wouldn't if the fertilizer price had never gone up. Right. And so if you're learning how to manage an incredibly high fertilizer price,

optimistically, it balances itself out and comes around. Imagine what you can do when it becomes more balanced again. Imagine if you learn this skill of what it costs to make hay and what it costs to fertilize and how to walk that razor's edge. If we come down 20%, you're even better for it. So I'm encouraged by the fact that we can make changes we wouldn't make. I'm hoping someone or someone's listened to this and think, hey, I should really dig into this because

10 years from now, this could be a huge part of your operation, really change what you're doing if you take the steps today.

Dwane Miller (43:22)
And that's a goal, right? You listen to this, pick up a thing or two, and at the end of the day, we all want to become better producers out of it. that's a great point. So thanks, Justin, for always helping us focus on the positive aspects.

Justin Brackenrich (43:36)
That's me.

Dwane Miller (43:37)
So I want to say thanks again to Andrew, our guest for this episode of the Agronomy Highlights podcast. If you like us, hey, share us with a us what we're doing wrong. If you have a topic suggestion, we'd always like to hear from you. And with that, I'm going to close out and say thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you next time on the Penn State Agronomy Highlights.