Veteran And Newcomer Share Top Forage Honors At Ozark Empire Fair Hay Show
MT. VERNON, MO.
The 2019 Ozark Empire Fair (OEF) Hay Show winners are John Staiger, Billings and Marcia Moreland, Crane.
Staiger won the very first OEF hay show in 1985. Since then he has received the champion ribbon three times at OEF and several times at the Missouri State Fair.
His winning entry this year was a mix of alfalfa and orchard grass haylage cut April 15. The hay was wrapped at a moisture level of 50 percent. The Relative Forage Quality (RFQ) was an impressive 220 with 67 percent Total Digestible Nutrient level (TDN) to go along with 22.3 percent Crude Protein.
Moreland’s champion dry hay was her first win. She first competed in 2012 at the OEF and placed seventh out of eight entries in the grass-legume class. The next year her fescue-orchardgrass entry was fourth in a class of four.
“She did not compete in 2014 but had been visiting with University of Missouri Extension specialists and observing what hay show winners were doing,” said Cole.
Moreland’s studies paid off in 2015 as her fescue hay placed first in a class of six. Since then her entries have placed near the top of the class each year. Finally, this year, her alfalfa entry cut on April 19, earned her the champion dry hay award from among 25 dry entries. It had a 207 RFQ, 67.6 percent TDN and 22.5 percent protein.
“Overall, the number of entries were about the same this year as in recent years. The RFQ numbers indicate lower values, likely due to the later harvest and the wet season since higher RFQ scores occur in dry years,” said Cole.
The first 31 years of the OEF Hay Show placings were based on both subjective and objective evaluation. Since 2017 the ranking is strictly based on RFQ. A couple of reasons for this are it allows the show to have various sizes and shapes of hay packages as well as including haylages. Haylage is becoming a more popular method of forage harvesting, especially for early cuttings.
RFQ is based on lab estimates of digestible energy (TDN) and dry matter intake. The lab used for the show is Custom Lab at Monett. It is a helpful way of making marketing and decision making. It is not used in ration balancing as protein and TDN (energy) are used for that.
Complete information on this year’s entries and lab results, as well as past year's averages, can be found at http://extension.missouri.edu/lawrence . ∆