Around the Farm : The chickens are roosting overhead
Posted on Sunday, September 7, 2008
It's been said that timing is everything. If the high price of fertilizer, fuel, feed and related farm items had hit during the 2004-06 droughts, sale barns would have remained open around the clock to move cattle out of the area.
So timing is everything and as livestock producers can attest," To grow forage you need moisture, fertility and favorable temperatures, followed by more moisture. "Three-offour isn't bad, the fourth being the fertility requirement. However, 2008 's adequate moisture pattern continues to enable plants to extract soil fertility reserves while maintaining favorable growing conditions.
However, if we agree that timing is everything, let's agree about the unfortunate timing of high fertilizer prices in conjunction with the loss of poultry litter in many Arkansas watershed areas.
Forage / livestock producers have depended on litter as the most economical and complete fertilizer product for decades.
As litter became unavailable the learning curve attached to commercial fertilizer use was expected to go straight up. Habits are hard to break and there is much to learn about products, rates and efficiency.
However, as prices skyrocketed, producers reacted normally and continue to take a wait-and-see approach. As they wait, fertilizer prices continue to climb and fields go unfertilized.
Again, timing is everything and the favorable moisture pattern of 2008 has enabled producers, with minimal or no applied fertilizer, to have access to one of the most abundant forage crops ever. Any individual, rural or urban, who runs a lawn mower can appreciate the growth pattern experienced this year.
Chickens do come home to roost and problems related to depleted soil nutrients are perched right overhead. It has become painfully apparent that producers in many watershed areas can no longer apply poultry litter to correct nutrient deficiencies. Unless something happens on an international level, it is also apparent that producers cannot afford to apply commercial fertilizer products.
As many producers will note," Something must change in the livestock and forage business or we'll be gone ! "That chicken roosting overhead seems to be getting larger and the limb continues to bend. Till next week !
• • • Robert L. Seay is a county extension agent with the University of Arkansas'Cooperative Extension Services. Call him at (479 ) 271-1060 or e-mail rseay @ uaex. edu.
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