Commodity alfalfa is coming down, and it has been coming down long enough to call it a trend rather than a wobble. The average alfalfa trade this week was $156/ton, off 6.6% from last week. Our 8-week smoothed line puts the slide at about $7/ton per week, and it projects alfalfa trading in a $155 to $175 band from a recent level near $160. Direction: softening. Confidence: medium.
That is the headline every buyer with an empty barn wants to read. The trouble is that almost nothing else in the market moved with it. So the real question isn't whether hay is getting cheaper. It's whether *your* hay is.
The slide is narrow
| Category | Grade | $/Ton | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alfalfa (all trades) | Mixed | $156 | Down 6.6%, trend softening |
| Alfalfa | Good | $202 | Up 2.9%, from $197 |
| Mixed Grass | Mixed | $180 | Up 8.7% |
| Alfalfa/Grass Mix | Mixed | $341 | Up 3.9% |
| National benchmark | All hay | $170 | Up 2.1% |
The national benchmark rose 2.1% to $170/ton. Mixed grass jumped 8.7%. Alfalfa/grass mix gained 3.9%. And the alfalfa buyers actually compete for, good grade, climbed to $202 from $197. That good-alfalfa read comes from just 2 markets, so treat it as a direction rather than a verdict. But the direction is the opposite of the average.
Put those together and the softening lives in the bottom and middle of the alfalfa stack. That one fact sorts buyers into two camps.
Who should wait
If you are feeding dry cows, backgrounding calves, or filling a roughage slot where a forage test won't make or break the ration, the trend is working for you. The commodity line is falling, and the cost of getting it to your yard eased too: U.S. diesel sits at $6.20/gal, down $0.18 week over week, which makes delivered loads a touch cheaper.
Waiting here doesn't mean holding out for a crash. The bottom of the projected band sits right around where alfalfa traded this week. The point of patience is to avoid paying the top of that band. Buy in pieces instead of one big winter contract, and let each tranche price against a softer line.
Who shouldn't
Dairies, horse barns, and anyone buying on test results should not read the alfalfa average as permission to sit. Good alfalfa went up. And the backdrop behind it is tight on every side:
Hay stocks stood at 23.3M tons across 48 states as of May 1, tightening versus a year ago. Cattle on feed run 11.16M head, +0.7% versus a year ago, so the demand floor is holding. Source: USDA AMS.
Add drought: 40.01% of the U.S. and 47.84% of the Lower 48 is in drought, per the Drought Monitor. Tight stocks bite the top grades first, because that is the hay nobody can substitute away from. Waiting on premium alfalfa means betting against supply, demand, and weather at once. That's a bad bet to make for a commodity that's already moving the wrong way for you.
Don't book off Pipestone
The loudest number on the board this week is Pipestone, MN, down $37 to $184/ton, a 16.7% drop. It's tempting to read that as the slide arriving in the Upper Midwest. Look closer: it is a single price line, on about the same volume as last week (37 vs 40 tons). Thin markets swing. Meanwhile Dakota, SD printed $220, leaving a $36 gap between two neighboring auctions. That isn't a trend. That's two sale barns having different weeks.
What would flip the call
Watch Crop Progress on Tuesday, October 13. Pasture and range condition is the swing factor this fall: poor pasture pulls hay feeding forward, and earlier feeding would put a floor under commodity alfalfa sooner than the trend line assumes.
And keep our own record in view. We've logged 7 accurate calls out of 13 graded, and our last graded call, in issue 27, missed. The projection carries medium confidence for a reason. It tells you which way the commodity line is leaning, not where it lands.
The play
Split the book. Lock the good alfalfa now, because nothing in the data says it gets cheaper. Let the commodity alfalfa come to you in pieces while the trend still leans lower. And the week pasture ratings turn ugly, stop waiting.