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Little River, TX | Which is roughly what our two western hay growers are saying.
But than again many of the hay fields in the East are really only a sideline enterprise.
A more typical rotation is to follow a small grain with alfalfa, eventually followed by a large seed crop. I like to follow alfalfa a with alfalfa as it pays better than any program crop I can try, and my equipment cost will be a whole lot less.
I hope you managed to pick up some Jr College credits, mostly biology and chemistry so you will be able to understand the jargon used by the university types.
I strongly advise you forget watching TV and do a lot of research on the Web Here might be a good place to start. http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Forage/ProceedingsPage.htm
California may be a stretch for you but they have a lot of good information, Look at their Archives also. http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/2007AlfalfaConference/
Phosphate and potash institute has enough information to keep you reading all next winter. http://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/bcrops.nsf
Oklahoma has about as good a text on alfalfa as you will find. http://alfalfa.okstate.edu/pub/alfalfa-production/guide1.pdf
Their web page is interesting reading but will not directly translate to your climate or soil. http://alfalfa.okstate.edu/
For hay harvest about as good as you will find for the humid climate is http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/pubnwsltr/TRIM/5811.pdf
I copied their charts, enlarged them and then copied the enlarged charts to graph paper. Read this every winter for the next 5 years. Each time you read it you will find something new.
Most of this stuff I found by searching the web. There is probably 100 times more than what I found, that I really need to know.
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alfalfa and oats
