Alternative Feed Costs Drive Down Kansas Hay Prices

Nov 05, 2014

Hay prices have declined in south-central Kansas, following falling prices for feed alternatives such as soybean meal, cornstalks and distillers grains, believes Roger Black, an Arkansas City grower with about 600 acres of alfalfa and prairie hay.

Black estimates current prices for 200-RFV alfalfa in large square bales at about $250/ton. That’s about $30-50/ton less than where prices were last year at this time. Large squares that test at 175 RFV sell for $218/ton – $32-82/ton less than they went for last October.

But hay prices could change as commodity prices increase in the days to come, Black says. Soybean meal jumped by $50/ton in the past week or so, he notes.

“I think that makes alfalfa hay a lot better buy. I haven’t seen that playing in the market yet, but I can’t help but believe that it’s going to happen on the better-end hay. I think we’re in the process of sorting out where these hay prices need to be in relation to alternatives.”

Many growers put up some rain-damaged hay throughout the season, he says.

“My perception is that we do not have any more than an adequate supply of good-quality hay; we certainly don’t have burdensome supplies.”

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.