Delightful day

We raised onions, maters, and so on in our land for many years. (So much for EPA etc) I tell you what, it was sufficient some months of the year the bounty that buried our kitchen went to the neighbors who had need of food. Kept them going as much as it did us without a dollar at store some days.

Im sure all of is illegal in spots around the USA but if you can do it and are doing it with the water bill whatever you got it from (Ours came from wells 420 feet give or take 50 underground with treatment.) Its been a bountiful well for a hundred years or more. Now it's sanding over slowly and we laid pipe already and are putting in more.

 

Not a lot of irrigated alfalfa in Wisconsin that I know about. Potatoes and vegetable crops mainly.
Out west they do things by the calendar. Fert, water, cut, bale and repeat.
Here we have a hell of a time making dry hay. To much humidity in the summer. When it gets near 90° a thunderstorm is gonna blow up before dark most generally.

 

HAy we have here in Arkansas.

There is a Valley and south along 31 and highways 64 bypass and up along towards Heber in the foothills.

You can roll up a hell of alot of hay out of there if you a mind to feed your herds. Which is what most small ranchers do here.

Once or twice we let our field run wild and had a hay man come up and roll it as a experiment. Came with three to four rolls out of there as a experiment. The value broke even against his cost in fuel and time. But it was worth a try. Nice to know back then we could roll hay if needed in extremis. Rather than mow the place.

 

Dairy farmers have to have hay that tests to there requirements, as far as protein and some other stuff goes. There is a lot to raising quality alfalfa, and climate has a lot to do with it, but even in good climate many farmers will not cut it in the right window to get the best hay. So it is trucked all over the country from areas and farmers that go the extra mile to out up quality hay.

Budweiser in florida, used to only use timothy hay from washington state, no others need apply, not sure what that was about. lol

 

I was a dairy farmer and my dad is a hay making fool that took great pride in making quality hay. The overwhelming reason hay is trucked is not quality it’s availability. There used to be a tremendous amount of quality hay made in Idaho because it’s an arid climate and the irrigate it and use it as a rotation with the potato’s. It was cheap from there because they didn’t need it and there was no local market so it was trucked long distances. Now there’s a bunch of dairies you there which has changed the whole situation.

 

Availability is a huge part of it, and I ask a new dairyman in Texas that had just moved in from Cali, why he located so far froim fed sources, there are several reasons, one being it was a big dairy hub and the milk contracts were better there, but he told me it was cheaper to truck feed than milk, was one of the big reasons.
In the past when we were in the alfalfa business I have bought hay in Idaho, too. We cut and baled 30 circles, but still bought a lot of hay when it would pass specs was not striped and the price was right.
We even went and made a huge round in Canada one year, but never found any hay that would suit our customers.
What they sell for hay here would have a hard time being sold for construction ditch hay down south, and it brings big money too. lol

 

He moved to California from Texas? Interesting California has been losing dairies for years and Texas and other states have been gaining

 

No he moved from cali to Texas, lots of them did back then.