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| The way I looked at the net income from corn while buying 32% was significantly higher than from selling baled hay. Most of the buyers for small squares that I had a baler to make were horse owners. They should not have been feeding hobby horses alfalfa, grass would have been better for the horses. One such buyer hauled 300 bales, and the rejected half of the without returning them, then his check for the rest proved his bank account didn't have adequate funds. I probably should have had a conversation with the sheriff in his county. His banker said his checking account never had enough to have covered my check.
I sold some to cattle producers in large round bales but had to hire the baling and bale moving. By my accounting corn was a lot more profitable.
I did get some oats but they were always light and not a big crop because I didn't want them to grow rank as a nurse crop so didn't fertilize them. Sometimes I had to hall them 25 miles to find a customer because of them being light. Sometimes I was able to sell oat hay to horse owners.
8 or 10 years of that rotation with full spring tillage did raise the organic matter on the farm from 1/4% to over 8% so it was good for the soil on a farm that had been farmed by tenants since 1938.
More years of alfalfa the way I looked at it would have hurt profits even more.
Gerald J. | |
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Nitrate from Alfalfa ?
