And all this time I thought hay production in TX meant looting it from AR so the price goes thru the roof (especially like 2011-12)

Serious note, Johnsongrass is a 2-edged sword:  like the pamphlet says, it is toxic at certain stages of growth for stock to eat, but very heat/drought tolerant.  Makes good hay, but if you let it head out before you mow, you're putting seeds wherever you feed out the hay.  And believe me, it WILL germinate and compete.  I inadvertently have it in some of my fields, but it's mixed in with other grasses to dilute it.  Like anything else, if you don't have all of one thing, you'll be fine.  Kind of an annoying management problem, though.


ETA:  Hard to get rid of Johnsongrass without nuking all the rest of the forage, but one good thing is that it doesn't stand periodic grazing as well as fescue/bermuda.  So, if you rotational graze, it will not get out of control.

I'd bet.  You get your rain, you can really make the hay.  Atlantic or Gulf Coastal Plain, they get 3-4 cuttings year if they fertilize right.  Too bad about the cow pasture subdivisions, we have plenty of those around here, too.

There's always astounding haymaking stories, as far as what you find in the bale.  I feed out round bales, 4X5, 5X5, etc; dead snakes are pretty much the norm, but I've found anything from eyeglasses, styrofoam ice chests, and all manner of hardware rolled up in hay that I've bought.  Of course, this was in drought times that I had to get whatever I could.  But hardware is bad news if eaten by a ruminant.  In a drought, people will roll up rights of way on the road, which is the worst thing you could do, with all the trash there.

Dudes think that just because they can run it through the baler, that makes it hay.  Rolling up all the bullshit along the edges of the field, bales full of briars, limbs, leaves.  You have to be careful as a buyer, if you can.  In a drought, I'd rather saw down trees for the cattle to eat than feed them 4X5s full of blackberry at $70 a bale.