Experiments With Grass Hay 



By 



F. S. Prince, T. G. Phillips, P. T. Blood and G. P. Percival 



/^LTMATIC and soil conditions in New Hampshire are generally 

 (luite favorable for the production of grass hay. It is common 

 practice to seed land to a mixture of clover and timothy and to cut hay 

 on that land for a number of years, long after the clover has disap- 

 peared from the stand and oftentimes until the yield has been reduced 

 ,_) to an unprofitable level. 



^ Reduction in yield is due largely to the exhaustion of available plant 

 ^food supplies. It is customary to apply manure and fertilizers at the 

 — 'time of seeding or to the hoed crop which normally precedes it, and 

 usually to both. In the years immediately following the establishment 

 of the stand, fertilizers are often not applied. Desirable hay grasses 

 have moderately high requirements for fertility nutrients, especially so 

 for nitrogen. When the nitrogen level is reduced to the point at which 

 timothy and other high yielding species will not grow so large, grasses 

 of a lower order of fertility creep in, causing severe competition and 

 finally the exclusion of the desirable species with a consequent reduc- 

 tion in yield. 



That this process occurs is common knoMdedge. The length of time 

 consumed in reaching a point at which hay yields are unprofitable de- 

 pends upon a great many factors such as the soil type, the amount of 

 manure and other fertilizers used prior to seeding, the amount and 

 frequency of top-dressings, the acidity of the soil and the system of 

 farming followed on any particular farm, including the need for rough- 

 age, the acreage available for its production and the size of the herd to 

 be fed. 



The decline in yield in long rotations is noted by AbelF who says, 

 "Those farms where plowing and reseeding occur more frequently — 

 four years or less in hay rather than six or more — obtain considerably 

 larger yields and are able to incorporate the higher protein legume hays 

 in the mixture." 



"■ Bull. 273, N. H. Exp. Sta., M. F. Abell, Roughage Production in New 

 Hampshire. 



