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Agronomist predicts little early forage harvesting in Wisconsin

A central Wisconsin agronomist says the weather so far this year has been great for planting, but it is not speeding up most forage growth.  Matt Oehmichen with Short Lane Ag Supply tells Brownfield he’s not expecting a lot of early forage harvesting. “So, for like this winter rye, for cover crops or for forage systems like your alfalfas, people are still kind of waiting a little bit, so it’s probably close to what people were seeing last year, even though everything is kind of soaring ahead.”

Oehmichen says a long stretch of overcast days and cool temperatures did not help the crops, but some of the dairy farmers he works with took advantage of the good field conditions to apply manure, which had noticeable results. “They did some low-disturbance manure injection, and they were doing anywhere from five-thousand up to nine-thousand gallons to the acre, and they noticed that that really made that cereal rye pop, as well.”

Oehmichen says he is not expecting first crop alfalfa harvesting more than five days ahead of average.