Haystack Mtn Brand pasture mixes are formulated and blended to maximize forage production, nutrition and palatability. They represent decades of experimentation, trial and error and tried-and-true species.

ALL PASTURE MIXES ARE NOT CREATED EQUOL!

To keep the price of pasture mix down, some companies add cheap “filler” species to their mixes. For example, Annual Ryegrass is frequently added to Irrigated Mixes because it is very cheap, grows fast and produces excellent forage. However, it’s an annual and dies off after the first year. Other producers will put Fescues in their dryland mix. Fescues require irrigation for best forage production. It will emerge and come up well in the spring, but in dryland situations it will die off after the first heat wave.   It’s a short-term investment mentality.

THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

Our Pasture mixes are formulated for performance and end results – not a price point. Our Dryland Pasture Mix contains species proven to perform in harsh desert and dryland conditions. Our Irrigated Pasture Mix contains high-production forage-type species with longevity and persistence.

HIGHER RETURNS ON YOUR INVESTMENT

Consider the following two scenario…

Scenario 1: John has a 10 acre dryland pasture he wants sow and use for cattle. Brand X sells a dryland pasture mix with 35% fescue at $2.00 per pound. He drill seeds at 15 pounds per acre for a total seed cost of $300.00 ($2.00 X 15 lbs/acre X 10 acres). He has a wet spring and the crop comes up well. By late summer it gets hot and dry and the fescue has died off. He loses 35% of his stand. The following year, the remaining species come up again but struggle to spread because the fescue roots have bound up the soil. This is generally followed by buying more seed to inter-seed. Assuming (for the sake of simple mathematics) a potential return of 1,000 pounds forage value per acre, this farmer lost 350 pounds of forage per acre for a total of 3500 pounds, multiplied by the total number of years the stand remains under-productive.

Scenario 2: Now consider the same farmer in the same field, but in scenario two he plants a Premium Dryland Pasture Mix, blended to perform, at $2.75 per pound. His seed costs are now $412.50 ($2.75 X 15 lbs/acre X 10 acres). All of the species are selected for drought tolerance and maximum yield, not a price point. The seeding matures to full production and he achieves 1,000 pounds of forage value.

In scenario one the farmer saved $112.50 up front but he lost 3,500 pounds of forage – and the effects are multiply over the life of the stand. Of course, the numbers change and vary with conditions, but the point is this: the seed is the least-expensive component of the equation, so plant the very best. It costs more money to prepare the ground and sow the seed that the seed itself costs. Invest in long-term solutions with higher returns!