Award-winning hay grown right in our area
Posted on Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The best quality Bermuda hay in the nation is grown right here in Pea Ridge. On a 40-acre farm just northeast of town, Paul Arnold farms the same fields on which he played and worked as a child. He was one of six children born to Jess and Doris Arnold. He worked on the farm all of his life. After high school (he graduated from Pea Ridge High School in 1979 ), he ran a dairy on the place. He and his wife, Claudia, have two children, Jamie and Emily. Across the road lives Jess Arnold, one of Paul's brothers. Arnold, Jack Kelly and Larry Miser won top awards at the 2008 American Forage and Grassland Conference held in Lexington, Kentucky, earlier this year. Arnold, with a Greenfield variety, won the 2008 Bermuda Hay award winner.
"This entry was possibly the highest quality Bermuda hay ever produced in Arkansas and the nation with a score of: 22 percent crude protein; 73 percent TDN; relative feed value of 149 and relative feed quality of 179," according to Robert Seay, Benton County extension agent. "I started dairying in 1977 and did that until 2000," Arnold said. In 1989, he put out Bermuda grass because it "fit my program better. "Previously, he planted and cut alfalfa, but he found the Bermuda better for his needs with its relative feed value, quality and protein. Winning the awards was gratifying, but Arnold was humble about it. In addition to cutting his own fields, he custom cuts hay for other people on their land. Farmers from around the nation have called him seeking advise about improving their hay quality. Cutting the Bermuda every 30 days yields thick, nutrientrich hay. Bermuda can be bailed at a higher moisture content than other grasses without molding, he said. He begins cutting the first of June and ends before the first frost because Bermuda is a warm season grass. He said he's experimenting this year an will pasturing the Bermuda in the fall, despite it turning brown. He said it still carries good nutrients.
In the spring, he runs equipment over the fields to "bust up the cow piles and spread it "for fertilizer.
"Bermuda grass takes the most phosphorous which is a good deal for the watershed," he said.
While running a dairy, Arnold went to waste management classes - which he didn't think were helping him much at the time. He realized later that those classes provided valuable information for his hay production. In training, he traveled to Little Rock, Kansas City and Nebraska.
"I've been in it all my life," he said. "I took it over for my family while I was still in school."
He and one other brother stayed in the farming industry.
There was no Future Farmers of America when Arnold was in Pea Ridge High School. He said today's young people need to know how hard farming is and where their food comes from in order to improve respect for farmers.
"It's not a 40-hour a week job. Sometimes it's 80 hours," he said, admitting that the hay is less demanding than running a dairy, which required two milkings a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
He bales both square and round bales and runs beef cattle on his farm.
The economy has hurt farming with, not only the dramatic increase in fuel costs, but also the costs of fertilizer and nutrients added to the soil.
He said the price of nitrogen has tripled in three years.
"It hurts all the farmers," he said. "It costs to have highquality hay."
Whereas it used to cost him $ 20 to fill his tractor, it now costs him $ 200.
Those costs have forced some farmers to use less - or no - fertilizer. That affects the animals that eat the hay, resulting in slower and less weight gain. That, in turn, will affect the quantity of beef. If there's less beef on the market, beef prices increase.
Arnold works closely with the other two Pea Ridge winners - Jack Kelly and Larry Miser.
Second place honors went to Kelly of Pea Ridge, who grows a Vaughn's Bermuda variety.
Other Quality Forage producers placing in the Top 10 were Miser and Sherrill Dodd of Garfield.
In February, more than 100 Bermuda hay producers from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, joined by numerous program sponsors, celebrated the 10 th annual "Quality Forage "awards program at the new Benton County Fairgrounds auditorium.
According to program chairman Jim Singleton," We just completed our 10 th year with more producers enrolling more samples than ever before. Our overall hay quality was exceptional, which speaks well for producers and our hay customers."
Miser was presented a phosphorus-removal award for documenting the greatest amount of phosphorus removed from his watershed by way of hay yield and its offfarm marketing. He also received an award for highest yield per acre for the Vaughn variety of hay.
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