06/24/2026
Our Field and Forage Team would like to hear from you! What are you seeing in your hay fields this year? Have first-cutting yields been better or worse than expected? Did you notice differences based on your nitrogen program?
Did the drought really cut your first-cutting hay yields in half...or did nitrogen fertility have just as much to do with it?
Across southern Pennsylvania, first-cutting hay yields have been disappointing. Most of the conversation has focused on the spring drought and late freezes—and they certainly deserve much of the blame.
But our research at the Southeast Pennsylvania Research and Extension Center in Lancaster suggests another important factor: nitrogen fertility.
This spring, our cool-season grass research plots received adequate phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur. Some plots also received approximately 90 pounds of stabilized nitrogen per acre, while others received no spring nitrogen.
Here's what we found:
✅ Even with adequate fertility, the drought reduced yields to about half of what we'd normally expect.
✅ But the plots without spring nitrogen produced only about half the yield of the fertilized plots.
That means nitrogen still paid—even in a dry spring.
Our 90-pound nitrogen application cost approximately $90 per acre and produced nearly ¾ ton more dry hay per acre. That works out to about $120 per additional ton of hay produced.
Ask yourself this: What is hay worth today?
For most producers, it's considerably more than $120 per ton. Add in the improved forage quality and the likelihood that some nitrogen remains available for second cutting because of the dry conditions, and the economics become even more favorable.
We often think of fertilizer as an expense, but in years like this it's worth asking whether it's actually an investment that protects yield when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate.
These results come from our replicated cool-season grass research plots, established in 2024, comparing three tall fescue types (endophyte-free, novel endophyte, and Kentucky 31) along with orchardgrass. Soil fertility is maintained in the optimum range based on annual soil tests, and yield data are collected using a research plot harvester before the field is harvested as dry hay.
What are you seeing in your hay fields this year? Have first-cutting yields been better or worse than expected? Did you notice differences based on your nitrogen program? I'd love to hear what you're seeing across Pennsylvania.
