"It's an extremely poor year for hay," Pam Thompson, Farm Services Agency program technician, said about the hay harvest this year.
The brome harvest was good, but for the most part, everything else is poor.
The alfalfa crop is about half of normal, according to several sources. Most hay produced in this area is fescue and orchard grass. There was a dry fall, then there were early spring rains and cool weather, then hot weather and then drought kicked in.
Neither fescue or orchard grass does well under those conditions and both appear to be producing about half of the normal amount.
Its the same basic situation for any kind of plant.
There has to be the right amount of light, the rain they need and the space they need. Different plants will differ in the requirements. To do well, the environment has to fit the needs of the plant being grown.
The rain storm July 26 helped, but, according to Thompson, the area is down about 6 inches in moisture.
"Of course, we don't want it all at once, but we really need the rain," she said.
She said if the area would receive about the same amount of rainfall every two weeks for the next six weeks, it would go a long way towards solving the problem.