Last-minute moisture and a delayed fall frost have local farmers ending the season on an optimistic note despite a dry spring that threatened to parch reservoir-dependent crops.
Most Tooele County farmers are probably wrapping up the season with crop yields just slightly below what would be considered normal, said Leland Hogan, a Stockton resident and president of the Utah Farm Bureau.
“I think people are pretty well satisfied with the type of year we had,” he said. “It turned out better, at the end, than we thought it was going to at the beginning. So we’re looking at it with some optimism going into winter.”
This year’s late-summer rain likely helped many a crop scrape by, but it has also created an interesting situation in the hay market.
The rain came at such a time that it caused a lot of damage to a pivotal second cut of alfalfa hay, as well as numerous other crops, Hogan said. This has caused a shortage of high-quality hay, while increasing the amount of second-rate hay available on the market.
As a result, the local price for quality hay has jumped to more than $200 a ton, but the price for second-quality hay is down to $160.
“There will be feed, but it may not be of the quality that someone has looked for or has had in the past,” Hogan said. “People may have to feed a little lesser quality feed this year because of availability.”
But while the strange weather may have caused a hay shortage in Northern Utah — and most of the Intermountain West — the worst of the damage hit in Idaho and Montana. Hogan said crops there were so wet for so long that the grains sprouted in the head, completely ruining the crop for everything but animal feed.
In Tooele, a long summer and late fall frost has helped farmers catch up after a late start this spring. Corn and other grain crops have recovered nicely across the state, Hogan said.
“It has not been a bad fall, it’s been a good fall,” he said. “It’s given people time to catch up after what happened last spring.”
Still, while farmers went into this year’s harvest in much better shape than last year, Hogan said the Tooele area continues to see challenges. Prices for almost all farming equipment and supplies, excluding fuel, have seen increases. Tooele also remains one of the few areas in Utah where the National Weather Service has not lifted severe drought warnings.
“Don’t get me wrong, we had a period of moisture that caused some crop damage and increased soil moisture,” he said, “but we’re still in a drought situation as far as our storage in the mountains and the storage in the reservoir is concerned.”
But Hogan said the local farming community still anticipates next year’s growing season with a sense of optimism.
“Agriculture is a very resilient industry,” he said. “People who work in agriculture have a great optimism about the future and the opportunities that are out there.”