We’re in the midst of a summertime drought. The second cutting of hay is considerably smaller than the first cutting. The first field in my cutting schedule is seven acres. Its yield decreased from 25 round bales of hay for first cutting to 3 and one third bales for second cutting. Second cutting is always smaller than first, but this is abnormally so.
The permanent pasture my steers and hogs use is drying up fast. My backup plan is to graze hay fields. So I put a temporary electric fence in and started grazing a hay field, pictured below.
Summertime droughts are not uncommon here. Rarely do we have crop failures, though. So irrigation for crops is not used. An exception is my partners, Carrie and Eric. They rely so heavily on their pastures for chickens, sheep, and dairy cows, they’ve decided to put in a pasture irrigation system called K-line. I’m interested to see how it works for them.
Curiousfarmer 
that little doggie sure is lookin’ better!!!
bless you for adopting her!!
Hugs,
Karen from CA….
I’m wondering if your friends put in the K-line system for irrigation, and if they are happy with it. I’m thinking of putting in irrigation this year after our terrible drought in Montana this year.
They put it in and liked it last I checked. I need to ask them again as we just went through a real dry spell followed by a 3 inch rain and I am reminded again that the best fertilizer is water.
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