Winter 2024/2025 Issue

EAST COAST EQUESTRIAN Winter 2024/2025 Page 27 Real Estate Hot Summer Leads to Expensive Hay By Suzanne Bush “Everyone talks about the weather,” American essayist Charles Dudley Warner said, “but nobody does anything about it.” Indeed. As the summer of 2024 recedes into memory, many people may forget that it was the hottest summer ever recorded in National Oceanic and Atmo- spheric Administration’s (NOAA) history. Everyone was hot. The beaches and pools were crowd- ed with hot people. But all that heat represented more than an inconvenience, or an excuse to plunge into the nearest pool. On farms throughout the region, the heat—coupled with periods of drought—affected the growth of everything from alfalfa to corn to soybeans. Soon, people buying hay for their horses or grain for feed, will remember those hot dry A mare and foal search for blades of grass in an overgrazed pasture, a common sight in fall, 2024. An exceptional combination of weath- er events has led to less pasture, more demand for hay, and a hay shortage and higher prices. Photo credit: Suzanne Bush days of summer 2024, and realize that record heat and intermittent drought add up to higher prices. Peter Hicks, whose family owns and operates Hicks Hay Company in Kennett Square, PA, says that it’s likely the supply of hay will suffer from the summer’s extreme weather. “They’re going to have less hay,” he says, noting that the problems are not strictly related to hay. Typically, a farmer will have two or even three cuttings of hay in a year. “The second cutting didn’t grow back that well,” Hicks says. “People are starting to feed hay sooner due to not enough pasture.” He says that early in October there was a lot of rain in his area, and some of the crops that were planted then are doing well; but hay that was planted before the rain is not doing well. “It gets to the point where it gets this dry and the hay and crops do not have enough moisture to germi- nate the seed.” Looking ahead, he sees some trouble spots for horse farms. “It’s hard on the pastures. There won’t be a lot of pasture growth going into the winter.” Ron Hoover, who coordi- nates Penn State Extension’s On- Farm Research Program, recently described the ramifications for farmers of summer’s weather. He explained that the prolonged heat and dry conditions caused heat stress for a lot of the grasses. “They don’t like it when it’s 90- plus degrees, and couple that with limited water for transpiration and it makes it even more stress- ful. These grasses are just like our lawns, and they shut down when it gets this hot.” Julie Schrum, District 8 Director of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, says that farm- ing is inherently unpredictable. “One minute you’re praying for rain and the next minute you’re praying for it to stop.” She says this year was especially “bizarre,” noting that an Amish farmer told her the dry weather was “phe- nomenal for tobacco,” not so much for other crops. Schrum’s district includes Dauphin, Leba- non, Lancaster and York counties. Looking ahead, Schrum says other issues, along with reduced yields, will affect farmers. “Prices (Continued on page 31)