Rain, humidity hamper hay crop harvesting Horse farms fret about costs if supplies dwindle

PALMYRA – Amy Beem’s farm in Palmyra raises timothy, alfalfa and red top grasses on 400 acres, and usually by this time of the summer, she has about 15,000 square bales of hay in the barn.

So far this year, however, she has only about a third of her regular crop.

“We have only been able to bale 5,000,” Beem said this week. “We need a bare minimum of two days of good weather. Three is best.”

But rain has plagued Maine’s grass farmers this year. “The longer we wait, the heavier the hay gets,” Beem said. “Then it falls over and lodges flat. We are way, way behind.”

Weeks of rainy days have stalled Maine’s grass farmers from cutting and baling hay, a situation that has horse owners especially concerned. One horse consumes about 200 bales of hay annually.

Because horses require a dryer, mold-free hay compared to cows and other ruminants, this summer’s weather is hitting horse hay supplies hard.

The National Weather Service reports that for July to date, it has rained 11 out of the 20 days recorded thus far in the central Maine area. With 2.46 inches of rain, the state is only one-quarter of an inch above normal, but more rain is expected today and Saturday, followed by a couple of dry, sunny days, NWS senior forecaster Joe Hewett said Thursday.

“By Wednesday, however, the humidity should return,” Hewett predicted.

Even when a good, sunny day arrives, the farmers are complaining that the humidity wets the hay so much it that doesn’t dry out enough to bale.

“I have the prettiest crop you ever saw,” Hartland grass farmer Dale Hubbard bragged Thursday.

His hay, however, is 5 feet tall and the new crop is growing in underneath it because weather has kept him from cutting. “We are usually all cut by July 4,” he said.

“We can’t seem to rub two good days together,” complained Howard Keene who raises and works draft horses in Oxford. “I have 30 acres I can’t even get to. Both the quantity and quality seem to be lower than last year.”

Keene, who is moving his operation to Pittsfield later this year, said he usually cuts about 1,600 bales but has managed only 400 this summer.

“We have no choice but to watch for good weather. What else can we do?” he asked.

Sandy Welsh is the manager of Puckerbrush Farm in Newburgh, an Olympic training site for dressage and jumping with a need for 7,000 bales of hay annually.

“We have only 1,200 in our barn,” Welsh said. “I’m going out this morning to rent a tractor-trailer to begin stockpiling hay.”

“The problems with the weather and the hay crop is a daily conversation here,” she said.

Acadia National Park’s stable manager Ed Winterberg said his 18 horses have plenty of hay.

“Right now it is not difficult, but later this year looks bleak,” he said. Acadia’s carriage horses are kept on Mount Desert Island only seasonally, getting moved for the winter to farms in Maine and Kentucky.

“If we end up paying a lot more for scarce hay later this season, it will reflect in our overhead, not our rates,” said Winterberg.

In Aroostook County, grass farmers usually cut just once compared to two or three cuttings in the southern part of Maine.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get the hay in,” grass farmer Cheryl Sawyer of Smyrna Mills said.

Sawyer has been asking $2.35 per square bale and may have to raise her price as hay becomes in short supply.

“We had already considered raising our prices once before to compensate for high diesel prices,” she said.

Sawyer noted that “horse people are calling us all the time looking for hay. If August doesn’t turn off dry and clear, we’re all going to be in trouble.”