Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006170082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They look similar, bristly rectangles of dried stalks and stems wrapped by tight strands of twine.
But put a bale of each before some cattle, and they will show you the difference.
They will eat the hay. It's food. They will lie on the straw. It's bedding.
Straw is a byproduct of grain production - the stalks of wheat, barley, oats or rye. The grains are harvested after they mature and dry. Kernels are stripped from the rest of the plant, and straw is the brittle stalk left behind. The straw can be baled or left in the field to mulch.
Ray Turner and his sons don't use straw for bedding at their Bedford County dairy farm. They don't have enough storage space to keep straw bales shielded from the weather. Instead, they buy sawdust by the ton from a local sawmill to use as bedding. Spread on barn floors, the absorbent sawdust can easily be cleared out and replaced.
The Turners sell their straw to landscapers and builders, who use the bales as mulch and to prevent soil erosion. Fifty-pound straw bales sell for as little as 75 cents and up to about $2, which is more common.
Hay is a more important crop to the Turners and to all livestock farmers. High in fiber, protein and minerals, hay is a keystone of the feed ration for cows, horses, goats and sheep.
"Hay is a tremendously important crop. It's a homegrown, relatively inexpensive source of feed," said Virginia Tech agronomist Harlan White.
Hay can be grown on poor soils that are unsuitable for other crops. Stands of hay need to be re-plowed and seeded - farmers call it renovating - only every 4 to 8 years.
Alfalfa, clover and orchard grass are the most commonly grown hay crops in Virginia. The Turners raise orchard grass. To the untrained eye, fields of hay may appear to be just large, uncultivated tracts of grass or weeds.
For growers in Western Virginia, producing a good hay crop is a challenge.
Alfalfa, the most prized of the forages, is sweet pickings for myriad pests and must be carefully watched for damage.
But the biggest problem is finding a stretch of three dry days, at the exact time when the hay is mature enough for cutting, to cut and bale. Mowing too early or too late reduces the nutritional value of the hay.
It is a tricky process in the humid, damp hollows.
"We're in a sorry hay-making climatic situation here," White said.
Hay must be mowed one day, raked into a windrow the next, turned to dry the underside, and baled on the third. Rain at any point can hurt the quality of the hay.
"It's not an easy deal at all," White said. "If they bale it too moist, it can combust inside the barn."
Within the tightly packed bales, microorganisms set to work decomposing wet hay. They generate so much heat that the hay ignites and usually takes the barn with it down in flames.
"Every spring we get a couple of those in Virginia," White said.
During a growing season, Virginia farmers mow hay twice, usually once in May and once in July. In the heat of the summer, the crop's growth slows, and some farmers allow their livestock to graze the hay fields.
Hay cut in spring and early summer is fed to cattle through the winter.
by CNB