News

Grass growth affected by cool, dry spring in MO

A livestock producer in central Missouri says the cool, dry conditions in early spring hurt the grass growth in central Missouri.

David Dick from Pettis County tells Brownfield… “there’s orchard grass that’s headed out that’s not knee high and fescue beginning to shoot ahead that just might be above knee high. That’s kind of not where you want it to be. You want fescue to be waist high or better and orchard grass looking a lot better than what it does. It doesn’t have a lot of foliage to it.”

He says some farmers are already cutting hay just to restart the grass growth.

“If that first isn’t good, you need to go ahead and get it off,” he says. “Whether you graze it, bale it or mow it, get the heads off it and it will come back to make good fall hay. We’ll have to see what we’ve got.”

But he says clover is a silver lining.

“It wasn’t hurt in the cool, dry conditions. It didn’t get started until it started raining about three weeks ago and it’s come on so a lot of it is knee high to waist high. Some of it is beginning to bloom and it’s just about right where it needs to be.”

USDA says as of mid-May, Missouri’s pasture conditions are 89 percent good to excellent, an improvement from the previous week and hay supplies are 98 percent adequate to surplus.

Dick says he bales a lot of fescue hay in the fall and there might be good grass growth this summer and fall.