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Earlier this year, Bob Moore was optimistic about growing hay in southern Oklahoma. The longtime hay farmer said that rain early in the spring seemed to set his crop up for success.
“And then we just didn’t have no more rain,” Moore said. “It just absolutely didn't rain for 60 days.”
Drought across major hay-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska has suppressed yields. Record-high diesel prices and an invasive pest have also challenged hay growers this year.
Farmers generally expect to cut and bale hay multiple times between May and October. But that hasn’t happened in southern Oklahoma, according to Moore.
“People that are used to getting two or three cuttings, they only got one,” he said.
Hay is a critical resource for livestock raisers, particularly during winter months when there’s less grass available for animals to graze on. In some areas, a poor hay harvest means that cattle and horse owners will have to pay a premium to keep their animals fed. And this year, the cost of doing business is already abnormally high in agriculture.
Moore said that most of the cattle raisers in his area were well-stocked on hay from previous seasons. But that’s not the case everywhere.
Brock Ortner, a livestock extension educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said that few of the ranchers he works with had extra hay stowed away.
“These cow-calf producers had a pretty low hay inventory going into this year and since this drought has been pretty widespread … all of these areas that we might be able to go into for hay and find a reasonable price in most years, they're all feeling that same crunch. So we're seeing elevated hay prices,” Ortner said.
Diesel costs sink profits
Although many hay producers were disappointed with their yield, some say this season has not been a total disaster.
Guy Algar started growing hay in central Texas about seven years ago to feed his small cattle herd. He eventually started selling to neighbors.
“We've had really good years, and then we've [had years with] really like zero. I mean zero, no hay,” Algar said. “[This year] we're going to do okay. We're going to recover what we spent on fertilizer and upkeep on the equipment and have just a little bit left to maybe get supplies for cultivating the fields this coming spring.”
Like Moore, Algar has only produced enough hay so far for one cutting. He said his grass might grow enough for one more round. But he’d have to charge more for the second batch because of rising diesel costs.
“I was able to get my first cut in when the prices of diesel were around $4 a gallon, but now they're up around $6. So the second cutting I'll probably have to raise prices,” Algar said.
Diesel prices have risen more than $2.50 since the start of 2026. And it hasn’t just affected the cost of running a tractor. Algar said that parts for repairs and hay baling supplies have also gotten more expensive with the rise in diesel.
“The net wrap and even the twine, that's all made from oil. So the price of that goes up as well,” Algar said. “I used to pay under $100 for a roll of net rep. Now it's close to $300. Outrageous.”
Colin Graff runs a hay business west of San Antonio in Hondo, Texas. His fields are irrigated, which helped him produce the roughly 12,000 hay bales he and his wife grow annually despite the drought. Fuel costs were a drag on their business, however.
“It has hurt profitability,” Graff said. “It wasn’t built into our budgets.”
Another unforeseen challenge may have affected Graff even more than fuel costs, however: the pasture mealybug.
‘It makes it difficult, very difficult’
Pasture mealybugs are invasive insects that Texas farmers first noticed in 2022. It’s unclear how they got to the U.S.
Mealybugs are tough to spot because they’re so small. They can infest a field before a farmer even knows they’re there. They feed on grasses that Texas farmers often raise for hay, including Bermuda grass, haygrazer, and Johnson grass.
The bugs inject a toxin into the grass when they bite into it, weakening the plant. Pasture mealybug infestations can be identified by rusty-looking discolorations in a pasture.
Graff, the hay grower in south Texas, said a variety of Bermuda grass he grows called Tifton 85 was especially damaged by the insects.
“We've got over a thousand acres of that and they flat hammered it everywhere,” Graff said.
The pest has spread northward from far south Texas to roughly 35 miles from the Oklahoma border, infesting some of the state’s best forage-growing areas in the process.
Danielle Sekula, a south Texas pest management specialist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, said that mealybug damage has made hay grasses in the area less productive.
“These [farmers] were used to getting at least seven or eight cuttings with their Coastal Bermuda grass fields. And it’s gone down to three or four,” Sekula said. “It’s partly drought, and then the other part is this pasture mealybug and the injury that they caused to the overall plant health.”
Sekula and her colleagues tested different pesticides to control the pasture mealybugs for months. The Environmental Protection Agency eventually gave emergency approval for farmers to use a pesticide called Centric 40WG in August.
But the chemical has not been a cure-all due to its cost, and the fact that mealybugs can easily infest a field before a farmer even knows to spray.
“It’s just a difficult pest to manage and it does affect the amount of cuttings you have,” Sekula said. “And then on top of that, if we're going through these intense hot periods and there's no access to water, it makes it difficult, very difficult.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
