The 2023 growing season across NYS and the Northeast has thrown just about every weather scenario at us, making it hard to generalize any conditions across the state or region. However, as reports come in regarding the timing of tasseling, one general trend seems to be that the timing of tasseling is lagging behind 2022 by a week or more, despite similar planting dates. Due to the uncertainties of this season, PRO-DAIRY offers follow-up ideas to build on the Corn silage harvest toolkit: 2023 edition shared last month in a new fact sheet Corn silage harvest: An exercise in patience (2023).
The diverse weather challenges of 2023 have also impacted the ability to harvest both adequate quality and quantities hay crop forages. This is a good time to take inventory of current forages. Not just the total quantity but the quantity of different quality forages on the farm. This can be used to determine what is needed for the year to come and if it is realistically feasible to obtain this from available acres during the remainder of the 2023 season or if plans are needed to secure additional forages.
Some existing resources that may be useful for this include:
- Strategies for hay crops 2023
- Storage strategies for over mature hay and securing extra forages
- Inventorying Forage
- Forage acreages needed for dairy herd calculator
- Perennial forage cutting height
PRO-DAIRY is a nationally recognized extension and applied research leader serving dairy farms for more than 30 years.
