Enticed by last year’s high wheat prices, many farmers in Central Oregon and across the country plowed up hay fields this year and planted wheat, leading to a nationwide hay shortage and near-record prices, according to Mylen Bohle, crops specialist with the Oregon State University Extension Service in Central Oregon.

Bohle said the hay shortage has been exacerbated by crop damage caused by severe drought in the southwest. Ranchers desperate for feed to keep their cattle from dying in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and other southwestern states have been calling for the first time in memory to buy hay from farmers in Central and Eastern Oregon, said Bohle and Greg Mohnen, foreman at McGinnis Ranch in Tumalo.

“I am getting calls from multiple states looking for hay,” said Mohnen, who is also president of the Central Oregon Hay Forage Association.

Statewide, farmers are growing about 35,000 fewer acres of hay this year than in 2010, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service crop estimates.

Statewide, the service reported the average price for all hay in August was $225 per ton, up from $156 per ton in August 2010.

Locally, officials interviewed Wednesday and Thursday said hay prices are running $50 to $100 or more per ton above last year.

Examples include supreme alfalfa hay, sold primarily to dairies for $285-$300 per ton, up from $145 to $200 last year; top quality orchard grass hay mix selling for $265-$275 per ton, up from $125-$155; and utility hay, which has been rained on or bleached out, going for around $180 per ton, up from $75-$125 per ton last year. Those prices are based on hay sold this summer by growers in Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties.

“Dairy (milk) prices are up 50 percent over last year, so dairies can afford to pay a little more for hay,” Bohle said. The increase is also contributing to the rise in hay prices.

Mohnen said the higher hay prices will help farmers cover the rising costs of fuel, fertilizer, water, electricity and farm machinery.

“Fertilizer has gone up 30 percent since last year,” Mohnen said.

Central Oregon hay production was also dampened this year by the long winter and cold weather that extended through much of the spring and early summer months, Bohle said.

“This was one of the coldest years we’ve had in a long, long time, especially the cold spring,” Bohle said. “A look at the records shows this was by far the coldest spring we’ve had in five years.”

As a result, Bohle said area farmers reported one of the smallest first cuttings of alfalfa hay in years.

“It’s hard to make that up with second and third cuttings,” Bohle said, adding that typically the hay growing season is long enough to get three cuttings during the summer in Central Oregon.

Statewide hay production value reached $582 million in 2008, then dropped to $464 million in 2009 and $473 million in 2010, said Shaun Flerchinger, a statistician with the National Agricultural Statistics Service Oregon office in Portland.

With flooding in the Midwest and drought in the southwest cutting into production of hay and feed grain crops, Bohle said more severe shortages and higher prices are likely to continue into 2012.