Does anyone else grow haygrazer? What are yall doing with the fertilizer prices so high this year?

Was quoted $660 a ton for 32-0-0 yesterday.

Seed costs of:
$27 3 way cross
$38 Delayed heading or
$52 Later Grazer BMR

Makes for some expensive hay.

See what 46-0-0 is bringing. Traditionally, it was the cheapest per pound of N.

I always recommended that my clients plant permanent pasture in place of hay grazer. You eliminate all that plowing, planting, and annual seed cost.

Since I put out nitrogen and wheat seed at the end of September we may have had .9" scattered out over 4 or 5 showers. Can I just drill some hay grazer seed in and hope for a rain?

We stopped plowing years ago and decided to go with Wilman Lovegrass/Kleingrass combo. All we have to do is fertilize each year. Being dry land farmers, during wet years we have made as much as 230 round bales on the 24 acre area we bale each year. Most years we normally get around 8 bales per acre/ per cutting.

Call me crazy, but I do miss the plowing.

In BCS, urea went down a bit from December. $840 to mid 700s.

oklaunion said:

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In BCS, urea went down a bit from December. $840 to mid 700s.

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That's significantly cheaper per pound of N and 32-0-0. One drawback to urea, is that it's pretty much imperative that it be disked in.

Chicken litter is $35-40 a ton spread…

You don't have to plow it always. We burn the fields and drill it in. Works great

hlfarmsag said:

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You don't have to plow it always. We burn the fields and drill it in. Works great

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I'm not a chemist, but I'd think burning pretty well wastes the chicken litter and any advantage you're getting is solely or 99% from the burning, and you're essentially lighting that chicken litter money on fire.


Edit - or are you saying you burn and then drill the litter. That may work a lot better but I'm still pretty confident most the benefit each year is from the burning.

flashplayer said:

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hlfarmsag said:

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You don't have to plow it always. We burn the fields and drill it in. Works great

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I'm not a chemist, but I'd think burning pretty well wastes the chicken litter and any advantage you're getting is solely or 99% from the burning, and you're essentially lighting that chicken litter money on fire.


Edit - or are you saying you burn and then drill the litter. That may work a lot better but I'm still pretty confident most the benefit each year is from the burning.

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my guess he means he burns off field, then drills seed.

litter post was alternative to commercial fertilizer

Main purpose of burning is to get rid of the dead grass to make a cleaner surface for the drill. The ash also helps a little bit

Doesn't haygrazer require an assload of fertilizer to make a decent crop?

Sugarcane aphids SCA attacked my haygrazer and destroyed it so I transitioned to a SCA resistant variety.

Urea 46-0-0 is cheaper, fertilized ryegrass last month.

I sold the last of the haygrazer I baled last year today. Honestly, this year I'm going to cut 1/2 a circle of beardless wheat for hay and the other for grain (seed wheat). I'm following wheat with Soybeans and a circle of milo on the other pivot. I'll come right behind the combine with the swather and cut the milo stalks for roughage/hay grinders.

As soon as beans and milo comes off we will come right back with wheat. The haygrazer last year was tremendous yield, and could have likely cut another cutting but ran out of time.

We ordered inputs last year before the end of the year, I'm hoping things settle some before the end of 22 so we can order inputs at a reasonable rate.

I just fertilized our grazing pastures of Fescue and Orchard grass with Triple 17. Cost me $850 ton...last year it was $375.00 Put out 7 tons.....ouch!

Have thought about going to permanent grass, but have also thought about putting it back in row crop production next year. Have enough other grass hay ground now, which is its own question on how much fertilizer to justify putting out there.

Have quite a bit of Johnson grass that comes up, but the neighbor is planting milo instead of corn so he didn't want it this year.


Put out some dry in years past with NDure on it. Could look into that but with recent rain don't plan to plow it again before planting.

The liquid custom guy does a good job getting it out right before a rain for me. Field next to his base.

Gracious. Where are ya'll located! Checked in at the Co-op in Cooke County today, didn't see anything under 1000 a ton.

This place is in the BBQ Capital of Tezas.

I've been reading on dried algae as a potential fertilizer recently. Apparently in studies it's performed likewise or better than straight urea

Interested to see if it ever comes on as a viable replacement

Out of curiosity how often are you scouting your fields?

I know the SCA is a tiny little bugger, but generally we have 3 sets of eyes on a field every day. My FIL first of the morning, I check during my "lunch break" and I generally go again in the evening. The evening "scout is brief and generally checking wells/pivots too.

I'm working with some technology now that actually scans a field with cameras on every span of the pivot and delivers a report from the entire field. Disclaimer, I work for them so I get access to some stuff fairly early in the r&d channel, we do lots of Proof of Concept on our farm. This product is in limited release this growing season and will be full blown next season.

Urea over 1k/ton

Doc Hayworth said:

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Call me crazy, but I do miss the plowing.

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The microbes in your soil don't.

Last Thursday urea in Bryan was $780 per ton. Saturday it went to $840. Today it is $875. Check before you get it spread as you may catch the volatility on the down side. Hay prices going to be a ***** this year.

But 3/4 inch of rain the next day makes it hurt less.