I am in the process of looking over a empty farm and had a couple of questions I thought some of you could answer.

Farm has about 60 acres of pasture on good soil. How many bails of hay per acre would one expect from good soil? 1st.cut and 2nd.cut?

The old farm house is uninsulated and considering it is in Maine I view this as a problem even though it has been lived in for 150yrs. What is the best method of insulating old farm houses with out tearing them apart?

Thanks, Todd

-- Todd Leeman (todd.leeman@colehaan.com), February 12, 2001

Answers

Todd:

Contact your county ag agent as they can tell you what hay yields are typical in that area.

Also check out the Alternate Housing Category in the archives. There is one which starts "Need Advice..." which addresses many of the problems of buying an old farm house.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 12, 2001.

In August 1999, we bought a farm that had been left fallow for at least 25 years. Sporadically, someone would hay the fields but they had been left pretty much alone the whole time.

The first year we didn't have time to do anything except mow all the hay, and bale it. It was a first and second cutting combined done in late August early September. The hay certainly wasn't the best but we did get 1200 bales (split with neighbors), I picked through it and fed the best and sold the rest for .75 a bale.

Last spring I had a soil test done at our local Cooperative Extension (it was $10-$15) and found that while the soil was good it was lacking essential stuff we needed to lime it and add organic fertilizer. We're lucky there are two large dairy farms in the area and we contracted them to bring in their "slurrified" cow manure, I believe it was one large manure truck for 2 acres of land, so they made 15 trips at $25.00 per load. It stunk to high heaven here for a little over a week. I warned our only neighbors that it was coming, they were fine with it. I don't remember exactly how much lime was used but it was not very expensive. I believe it was less than $600.00 for the whole 30+ acres total.

This summer (2000) was a wet one here in Upstate NY. We managed to get the whole lot in the barn in late July without any of it getting wet. We have friends with haying equipment and they hayed the field on shares and I stored the hay for them this winter. We ended up with a smidge over 2200 bales. The hay is still weedy in spots but overall the quality is 100% better than the previous year. By cutting before the weed seed sets each year you'll have less and less weeds. I also brush hog the pasture twice a year for the same reason, this also keeps weed seed out of the hayfield as they share a common side. The hayfield and pasture really need to be reseeded but I can't afford to buy hay and keep the horses off the pasture for the full year needed to do it the right way. This year we're going to broadcast seed over both fields without discing. It certainly isn't the best way of doing it but the only option we have right now.

We'll have the soil tested this year and add what is needed. I figure we'll have excellent hay in about 3 years, until then I pick through what the horses get and sell the remainder cheap.

The best thing I did was contact the local Ag agent at the Cooperative Extension, I'm sure Maine has something like this.

Stacy Rohan in Windsor, NY who's already not looking forward to hot sweaty haying this year.

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), February 13, 2001.

If I was to do our farmhouse over again, we would drywall every bit of it, even the closets and ceilings. I didn't want to as it has such character with the wood and wains-coating showing. It's like looking at something 100 years ago. BUT, it's drafty in here and will be untill someone drywalls it in.

Going up in the attic and blowing insulation down the inside of the walls works, and work your way back covering the top of the ceiling. But do all your wiring first. We put all new electric all thru this one, and wasn't too hard. The blown in insulation is the cheapest around here. 25 bags plus the use of the blower for 75.00.

I learned on the U of K website about re-seeding fescue fields. Just broadcast the seeds, and keep the field mowed to no more than a foot high. Do not let the old grass go to seed. This gives the new grass lots of time to get established, and using grasses that take over others, will work over time. Granted, you don't get hay that year, but it's better than ripping up these old yucky fescue fields. We can't rip up ours, there's too many large rocks right at the surface.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), February 13, 2001.

Without fertilizers my 6 acre field yields about 200 sq. bales (50-60 lb bales) 1st cutting. Now my 2nd cutting will be around 150 bales. This field consists mostly of clover,fescue,orchard grass. Our soil is terrible, we have been putting lime back into to help bring up the ph level.

Like Ken said, call your extension agent in the county you live in and he'd have a better idea. Heck he probably will have the records on any crop productions done on your farm.

-- hillbilly (internethillbilly@hotmail.com), February 13, 2001.