Early March 2022 Hay Market Snapshot

BUYERS UPDATE (By Cieran Maxwell)

It’s a dominating topic right now in the hay world, the term ‘The King of Fodder’ is floating around – Lucerne is on everyone’s lips.

The king is back!
Why is Lucerne the King of Fodder? Well, Lucerne has always been the trusted traditional hay variety, the ‘go to’ selection for high protein and energy. Optimal milk production ‘go-go’ juice, growth enhancer, good for digestion and so many more things – it’s no wonder that Lucerne is known as the ‘King of Fodder’.

However, Lucerne needs a very high rainfall or abundant irrigation water, high phosphorus and nitrogen in the soil and perfect curing periods to produce a high-quality product. It has been close to a decade of poor Lucerne production seasons, however, this season (2021-22) something has changed. The emperor has returned home – the king is back!

Despite some areas being badly affected with flooding; nationally, the season has come through with ‘the goods’ and many Lucerne growers have experienced a largely favorable season!

This means that we’re seeing quality lines being listed for sale. Although it’s been a good season, some Lucerne hasn’t quite had the best run and there’s a very large and clear difference between the top-quality lines of Lucerne and other lower qualities listed. We’re seeing that Buyers are focusing on snapping up the FC AA lines first. We can also see that over the past few week’s buyers have started to be very thorough with their research on each lot before they jump in to buy. Buyers are looking at the Feed Test results (Quality Certificate), photos, storage and all the detail that they can easily find online (www.feedcentral.com.au/buy/search) – either on desktop, mobile or our app.

We’re encouraging buyers to go online or talk to us to find Lucerne that suits their needs. Prices ranging from $190-400 ex farm + gst. Desktop, Mobile or App, on our system it is easy to search by price lowest to highest. Cheap lines won’t last as sellers are acutely aware of the quality they hold and the final Lucerne cut for the season is upon us, especially when they look like this: (go to www.feedcentral.com.au for more details and enter your search criteria).

SELLERS UPDATE
– (By Jill Parker)

Our team of Feed Central inspectors (Rovers) have been on the road this week.  Holbrook based Alex Smith, has been busy on the road inspecting hay from Holbrook to Deniliquin, Mathoura, Mitiamo, Euberta, Wagga Wagga and home again.

Alex was happy to inspect several farms along the Murray, where they had a break from the rain, and produced some Lucerne hay with little or no weather damage.

In this area, there are quite a few sheds containing hay but not all are full. Many Lucerne properties are on their last or second last cut, and he’s seeing an increase in quality lots being listed for inspection.

Alex’s highlight this week was inspecting 4 very high quality Lucerne lots on one property in Wagga Wagga. 

TEST UPDATE (By Kimberley Detmers)

It appears we are past the peak of the Lucerne making season as this past fortnight we’ve seen Lucerne Hay samples starting to wind back in number through our testing laboratory. Though one particular stand-out Lucerne sample tested at a Crude Protein of 25.7% and M.E of 10.8%. This sample came in from a livestock producer feeding to their own animals in Gatton, Queensland! Those lucky animals!

We have seen an increase of prepaid feed tests ordered through our website these last couple of weeks, along with essential hay testing equipment such as the hay corer. It is great to see producers taking such interest in procuring representative samples of product for quality testing.