Hay Making Practices in Hilly Areas of Pakistan

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Hay Making Practices in Hilly Areas of Pakistan

• Professor Ghulam Habib
• NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar

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Features of Hilly Areas

• Mixed crop-livestock farming
• Livestock farming as primary livelihood source
• Range vegetation serve major feed source for
  livestock (grazing stall feeding)
• Long winter periods of 4 to 6 months with
  restricted or no grazing
• Face severe feed scarcity

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Land Holdings Fodder Cultivation

• Small fragmented landholdings
• Fodder cultivated on land unsuitable for
  cereal crops
• Fodder cultivation integrated with other crops

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Fodder Availability in Hilly Areas

• Bulk supply of fodder not available, thin out
  plants from agriculture crops carried for animal
  feeding

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Farming System in Mountains
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Transhumant Livestock Farming Most Dominant
System

• Combined with hay harvesting
• Foothill and mid hill pastures are closed for hay
  making during summer but open to grazing during
  winter
• Grass hay preserved for winter feeding used as
  major feed with crop residues

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Migratory System with Hay Making
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Relevancy of Hay Making Practice in Mountains

• Grasses availability at distance
• On spot drying haulage to farm later as hay for
  winter feeding is manageable
• Grass quality may not support otherwise good
  silage
• Lucerne as choice cultivated fodder that make
  excellent hay

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Traditional Hay Making Practices

• Problems and Scope for improvement

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Hay from Lucerne in Northern Areas(Gilgit
Skardu)
Excellent method, produce high quality hay with
intact leaves and preserved green colour
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Well Preserved Hay
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Lucerne Hay Prepared in Chitral
Poor hay loss of quality green colouration due
to prolonged curing improper storage
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Improper Storage of Hay
Exposure of stored hay to rains sun
deteriorates quality
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Hay from maize in Kalash
Thin out maize plants dried on roof top in
batches for winter feeding
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Hay from Range Grasses in Hazara
Most common practice throughout Himalaya region
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Delayed Harvesting

• Low altitude grasses are left to maturity and
  harvested for hay making in September

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Traditional Hay Making

• Harvested grasses are left in field for drying

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Community based collective harvesting of range
grasses for hay making in Swat
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Farmers perceptions of making hay from mature
grasses

• Can not spare time from other farm activities for
  early harvesting
• Need more dry matter to feed animals over
  extended period of gt4 months in winter
• May help in seed propagation for rehabilitation
  of rangeland?

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Tree leaves also dried for winter feeding in
hilly areas
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Feeding of Hay

• Stall fed as a sole diet

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Feeding of Hay

• Stored combined with crop residues other dried
  vegetation on roof top for mixed feeding in
  Chitral

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Feeding of Hay

• Mixture of stored hay crop residues collected
  for animal feeding in Chitral

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Feeding of Hay

• Sheep goats allowed free access to mixture of
  hay and crop residues

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Way Forward

• Increase awareness of farmers on interventions
  that yield good quality hay
• Proper stage of harvesting
• Curing of hay
• Storage of hay
• Feeding of hay
• Cultivation of high yielding good quality
  fodder species

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Proper Stage of Harvesting

• Quality Vs Quantity
• Shall not be considered in isolation e.g
• Early harvesting may require reducing herd size
  of unwanted animal or vice versa
• Availability of alternate feed improved feeding
  methods may need to change conventional thinking

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Proper Stage of Harvesting

• More relevant to lucerne
• Delay in harvesting not only reduces quality but
  also reduces the number of annual cuts from a
  field.
• The reserve CHO of roots is consumed at flowering
  seed formation. This result in poor regrowth
  potential increase susceptibility to stress
  (low temp, droughts etc)

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Delayed harvesting of lucerne crop
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Curing of Hay

• Traditional curing of hay causes
• Bleaching
• Loss of leaves
• Less digestible plant
• Interventions needed to minimize curing time,
  copying of relevant indigenous techniques to
  other areas as a best approach

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Improved Structures Used for Curing Hay
Tripod
Tetra pod
Hay Rack
Fence type rack
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Drying Pole for hay making on small scale
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Storage Condition

• Equally important that hay must be stored
  properly to preserve its quality
• Moldy hay cause health reproductive problems
• Simple inexpensive on farm shelter will serve the
  purpose

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Improvement in hay through high yielding better
quality fodder species
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Improved Lucerne varieties (non winter dormant)
Local variety
Improved variety
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Red Clover
Well adopted to hilly conditions
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New Potential Fodder Species For Hilly Areas
Vetch
Rye grass
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New Potential Fodder Species For Hilly Areas
Burgundy bean
Cowpea
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New Potential Fodder Species For Hilly Areas
Siratro
Splinda sitaria
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Profitable Hay Making
Harvesting (stage)
Fodder production (HYV)
Curing for Hay
Feeding of Hay (methods)
Storage of Hay
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Thank You