Option # 1: Soybean haylage considerations
- What is my realistic tonnage expectations?
- Late planted drought stricken soybean will yield ~1 to 2 tons of dry matter per acre.
- What is it going to cost me to harvest and put this crop up?
- The average cost on a hourly basis to harvest and ensile a soybean forage according to 2013 Iowa Farm Custom rate survey are as follows:
- Mowing ($11.45 per hour)
- Swathing ($13.50 per hour)
- Haylage (chopping/hour/ ft head width; $12.71)
- Hauling ($ not listed))
- Fill silage bags ($10.15 per foot of bag)
- How should I price this crop?
- Soybean silage pricing will fall between good quality hay ($233.10 per ton) and poor quality hay ($112.50 per ton); personal communications from P. Hoffman and R Shaver. Source: FeedVal 2012 predicted dairy feed prices and rankings for August 2013. V.E. Cabrera, P. Hoffman, and R. Shaver.
- If you were to price the soybean forage based on expected grain yield (assuming the crop would mature) and CBOT then realistic yield levels would range from 12 - 18 bu per acre at $14.35 per bu. Expected forage value range would be $172.20 to $258.30 per acre.
- I am tired of throwing money at this crop..........
- Though you will save on harvest costs the average cost of a plow down disk operation is $16.05 per acre.
- How much will I save on next years fertilizer bill?
- By not harvesting the crop you will not remove the 30# P and 85# K (estimated removal rates of P2O5 and K2O for 15-25 bu per acre soybean grain and straw (A2809)).
- You may contribute 20-40 pounds of N to next years corn or wheat crop.
- I need the feed so this is not an option (please refer back to option #1 above).