Producers are busy working on cutting this year’s hay crop.
Dr. Paul Jefferson a consultant in the Forage Industry recently released his 2019 hay yield estimates report for Saskatchewan.
He’s expecting the provincial average hay yield this year to be down around .96 tonnes per acre.
A lot of the drier areas of the Province this spring finally saw some rain in June, unfortunately, it came too late for this year’s 1st cut hay crop.
“By the end of June many of our cool-season hay crop plant species are at the end of their maturity cycle; so there less responsive to rainfall. So it may actually be a little bit of an overestimate but its an estimate that people can take and maybe do some planning around."
He notes the rainfall that many areas received in June is not as effective as rainfall earlier in the Spring when the temperature and rainfall are more moderate and the plants are still actively growing.
He notes with the cold winter we had last year, a number of producers will be short on feed and looking at other options like straw chaff, seeded annual crops that be damaged or downgraded, as well as short-season crops like barley or millet.
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