Changing Forage Quality Testing for Alfalfa Hay Markets:

There is ample evidence that our current fiber-based marketing system is inadequate in predicting some of the most important features of alfalfa and other hay products. Worse, our current system has the potential for abuses. Seven of these abuses are described here. One key misuse is the over-emphasis of small differences in fiber concentration (as translated to TDN or RFV), while ignoring important additional quality attributes of hay. While marketing using fiber concentrations has the advantage of being simple and relatively repeatable, it fails to account for differences in fiber digestibility, ash, or other dynamic features of quality that clearly affect animal performance. Since forage quality is innately multi-faceted, and demands by different classes of livestock diverse, it’s important to allow markets to recognize these multiple attributes of hay quality. Modest reforms of the hay marketing system to improve predictability, flexibility, and standardization of hay testing are suggested.