In Search of Green Hay

hey george, my hay may not have been as thick as yours. we had to triple them up. my thought was to rake first, then ted because it was so thinnly spread around. in the end we never tedded it. just reraked it three times and baled it. we have a rotary rake and it sweeps the grass till its standing. dries very nicely that way and keeps its color. if you had a neighbor with that rake and had him do a field for you, you could experiment a little, maybe. best o’ luck, mitch

This post by George and an earlier hay drying discussion make me think of some earlier work that I did with Dr. Alan Rotz on comparing hay drying strategies. He was previously at MSU but is now at State College PA with the USDA pasture group. He is probably the #1 authority in North America on hay drying technologies so it was great having the opportunity to work with him. I am attaching a pdf file of a presentation on rapid hay drying that I gave at a meeting put on by the Michigan Hay and Grazing Council in 2008. It includes some general discussion of hay drying but the part that is most interesting is the graphs near the end that directly compare hay drying rates.

The graphs track the drying rate of the hay in two drying trials that we did during one of our farm shows. The crop was a second cut alfalfa yielding 2.25 ton/acre dry matter, a pretty good second cutting. We compared (1)hay cut and layed in a wide swath (haybine) and then raked before baling at about 30% moisture, (2) hay cut and layed in a narrow swath and left alone until ready for baling, (3) hay cut and layed in a wide swath, tedded and they raked for baling, and (4) hay cut and layed in a narrow swath, then inverted with a windrow turner (30% moisture) for baling. In trial 1 there was 4/10 inch of rain during the night after the first day. Trial 2 started on the second day and did not receive any rain. In this trial all the hay was mechanically conditioned, raking was with a rotary rake and tedding was with a rotary tedder. We collected and dried hay samples from the windrow immediately after cutting and then every 2 hours during the day until the hay was dry enough for baling.

Before I explain the results of that work I want to say a few things about page 10 of the pdf which compares expected, average drying rates for cuts 1-3 of alfalfa with different drying strategies. These are averages that include a wide range of conditions including years that have rain so the results are relative to each other. Central Michigan conditions, second cutting is usually mid-July, we are influenced by the Great Lakes so clouds and high humidity are common, 105 day corn is pretty typical. Probably the most relavant for animal draft haying is the first method on the far left of the horizontal axis, Sickle bar, Full Swath, Rake and the third method from the left, Mechancal condition, Wide Swath, Rake. This indicates that the relative advantage of mechanical conditioning alfalfa hay is big in cut one (<5 days vs 8 days), less advantage in cut 2 (<4 days vs 5.5 days) and no advantage in cut 3.

On page 12 is the graph of Trial 1. The blue vertical bar indicates rain during the night. The horizontal line at 68% moisture indicates when each method was dry enough for haylage harvest, the horizontal line at 18% indicates when each was dry enough for baling. There are thick, vertical, colored lines that indicate when certain operations were done. For instance, the hay was cut at 9 am on day one and tedding was done about 11:30 am. On day 2 after the rain the crop was tedded again at 9 am, the raking and inverting were done a little later at 1 pm after the top of the swath had dried.

The narrow, colored, vertical lines indicate when each method was at a moisture suitable for harvest. For baleage harvest at 68% moisture the tedded hay was ready for baleage harvest by 1 pm on day 1, the wide swath raked about 2:45, narrow swath inverted about 3:15 and the untouched narrow swath at 4:45.

There was considerable re-wetting over night from the rain. By 5 pm the tedded hay was <30%, the inverted narrow swath about 38%, wide swath raked about 45% and the untouched wide swath about 55%.

On day 3 the tedded and raked hay was ready at 11 am, the other method were ready at 1 pm.

In trial 2 the drying conditions were better, lower humidity, drier air with a good breeze. Little difference between methods, every method was ready for chopping around 1 pm. On day 2 the inverted narrow swath was ready for baling at 1 pm, tedded hay about 2pm, wide swath raked about 2:45, untouched narrow swath at 5 pm.

So I guess the bottom line is weather has a huge effect on drying, mechanical manipulation has some effect but not as great as is would seem. The tool does not dry the hay, but it can create conditions that make drying from sun, wind etc more efficient. The trade-off is in the human and animal energy cost of the operation and in the hay dry matter loss that occurs with every mechanical manipulation of the crop, particularly as the hay approaches baling moisture and is brittle. The leaves are what is lost, and that is the best part of the feed value. So the weather is pretty important. If there is not rain in the forcast the regret for leaving the hay in the field 6 days rather than 5 is pretty small. But if cutting 1/2 or 1 day off the drying time saves the hay from a rain event the value is pretty big.

I think this is an excellent, practical approach. The weather dries the crop, not the machine. Once you ted the crop once, unless something happens to flatten it out so air movement in not effective, the added value from another tedding will usually be greatly diminished compared to the first tedding. And, if the humidity is high or the crop is shaded along a tree line the mechanical manipulation alone is not going to do much.

I am a proponent of doing the least amount of manipulation possible to put up good quality hay. That will change from first to second and third cut and from one year to the next. The reward is better hay and less work. I am also a proponent of in-field comparisons that are not overly complicated and reveal valuable information about what is really going on. It is not too hard to ted some windrows and leave others wide and rake later, bale what is ready and get the other a little later. It is important to farm smart with draft animals. Maybe you are already, maybe there is room for improvement.

I am a cautious proponent of the tedder. Right after mowing a heavy first cutting, shake the dew off a late first day cutting on the second day, wake up a matted down rained on crop. Lighter crops or late in the drying cycle the value not so clear cut because the tedding also damages the hay. I have heard some lofty claims of how fast the tedder will dry the hay, but in the work I described earlier and other work when the measurements are side-by-side the faster drying is usually a couple of hours to a half day, maybe a day in a heavy first cutting. I think it is important to avoid whole-field comparisons where the big difference might be the weather, not the tedder or rake. “Last year it took 6 days to dry down and this year I used a tedder and it only took 3 days…..” type of thing.

I think Tim might be getting at this point but I’ll mention it. The “current conditions” can change the drying time substantially so it’s hard to make an “X” number of days suggestion.

Daytime temps, relative humidity and wind can all drastically affect drying as well as night time temps (which can really increase the RH if they get low enough). Finally, what are you all cutting? When you talk about leaf shatter, you’re usually referring to a legume rather than a grass crop. Is that true here?

Wind is a good thing – as long is doesn’t blow your hay into the next county:) Works like a blow dryer.

I would be more prone to give hay at least one or two days drying then tedd, let it dry and rake/bale. Once I’ve got hay into a windrow, I want to get it baled up ASAP – raking into a windrow slows drying IMHO.

BTW- Your mileage may vary if you’re east of the Mississipi 🙁

I agree with a lot of what has already been said.

Some of the ideas I have taken home as I continue to learn hay making.

True with a tractor but doubly so for horses, I don’t want to do anything for little or no effect. I try to never rake until my hay is ready to bale ( I will rake early if I believe the hay is already dry and a little dew will reduce the shatter, but only if I am planning to bale it that day) . I might change that some day if I get a different rake.

I think the haybine made the hay dry faster, but only certain plants (red clover) and certain stages of maturity. Sometimes the difference MIGHT have been a day, many other times it was only a few hours. To a horse farmer a few hours is not as helpful as it is to others; I won’t be going out to bale at any hour of the day or night. This year I have mowed all but six acres with the sickle bar mower and I think I am done with the haybine. I will do a better job of tedding to hopefully make up for the drying effect of the haybine.

True testing is very difficult. The only experiment that would be of much value would be two rigs working in the same field at the same time. Even then you probably would get different results if you did the same tests the next year or even two months later.

I some times bale a field of hay and 10% of the bales are heavier than the rest. I will except this as a way of getting good hay in the barn. I can be careful to set those bales on edge on top of the stack or else where if need be.

Last week I made about 275 second cutting bales off 12 acres. A pretty light cutting. It was the last field mowed for first cutting, so it was only about six weeks regrowth. I mowed with sickle bar mowers one day (didn’t do the whole thing in one day), tedded the next morning, raked and baled the next day. There were a few heavy spots and one hedge row area that should have had an extra day to dry but it is all in the barn now. I was done by Monday before it got real hot.

Thanks so much for these discussions. I’m only in my 2nd year making hay and appreciate all your words of wisdom.
I’m learning about leaving green hay to “cook in the wagon”/ stand it upright to breathe and throwing a little salt on it from the older timers around here.
The covered round bales I fed out last December or so looked REALLY green in that arctic weather.
I just learned about “better than eating snowballs last week”. I thought it was pretty funny.
Thanks for putting your work down on paper for us.
oxnun