Haying Residuals

I’m new to making hay as untill now it was more economical to work through the summer and buy hay.This year the kids and I are doing our level best to put up some hay. I’m quite glad to read your expierience George and Carl, it’s what I have been leaning towards doing. Seems to me that the more you leave as growth or mow and let rot back into the soil the better quality grass will regrow.

Does the longer stuble hinder raking?
Do you have trouble with heavy hay cut standing up on longer stuble getting tangled in the pitmen arm?

Tristan

George, I think that is a good approach and I prefer to leave more stubble, but usually my decision is more based on how well the hay is standing and whether or not I have to cut a little lower to pick up down or lodged forage. I am not sure how fully the grazing height left transfers to mowing height because the grazing target is usually to leave 4 inches or so, and that extra two inches could make quite a bit of difference in leaf exposure compared to mowing at two inches or one inch. Of course, your species mix could have an impact on this. I am a proponent of side-by-side comparisons; can you take a few minutes and adjust your bar height differently in some strips across the field and see if it begins to make a difference over the next few years? It takes a little time, but information has value when it changes the way you do things. I don’t really see how to answer the question correctly without a side-by-side comparison.

I agree with the stubble height improving air circulation and drying. Also, higher stubble will shade the soil, keep it cooler and conserve soil moisture. I agree with Carl that grazing higher and clipping higher are not exactly the same because clipping tends to leave sharp stubble that bothers in the following grazing pass. I also do not try to stockpile pasture too long like I think Carl was saying. If it can not be cut timely for hay I prefer to brush hog it and get the regrowth started, keeping the crop vegetative rather than going to seed and drying down. If it is only hay ground then the decisions are a little different compared to having the option of using it either for hay or pasture.

When it comes to grazing height, particularly when grazing too low, I am more concerned about how long the cattle are on it than the fact that they grazed lower than I would like. Unless your pastures are perfectly uniform the cattle graze preferentially, grazing hard on the areas that they really like. If the soil fertility is good and you have adequate moisture I do not consider it to be a practical problem. In fact, it tends to release clover and improve botanical diversity. The problem is when they graze hard and long and push the species mix to bluegrass/white clover like you see in a lot of overgrazed, exhausted pastures. I prefer to give them access to an area for no more than 5 days, it often is a little longer than that, but grazing it down and keeping it down are two different things.

Tristan, the longer stubble will not hinder raking, it will most likely help provide a cleaner hay. That wheel rake that was mentioned a week or so ago is designed to turn by contact with the stubble and if you rake too low with any type of rake you will pull dirt and stones into the windrow. That is a good rake for uneven ground and will work best with long stubble.

A couple of thoughts to add:
-I like to leave 2-3 inches of stubble. Depending on how mature the grass is, there might not be much leaf area in the stubble, but many bunch grasses (timothy, orchardgrass) store much of their carbohydrates in the lower stem. This should have a pretty dramatic impact on regrowth.
-Increasing cutting height should increase the quality of the hay, as the bottom parts of the plant are almost entirely structural (high in fiber) compared to the leaf and flower tissues higher up.

-As Tim pointed out, close mowing/grazing tends to favor plants other than grasses, especially legumes. Since Alfalfa and Red clover regrow from carbohydrates stored in taproots, while grasses regrow from residual leaf area and carbohydrates stored in the base of their stems, mowing straight into dirt would favor them over the grasses. Since many dairy farmers around here are disposing of a lot of nitrogen on their hayfields, the low or non-existent residual is probably pretty important to keep the alfalfa from being overcome by the grass.

-Also Tim stated with “adequate moisture” it is difficult to graze too hard if animals are moved on quickly. I agree, though I’m reconsidering how hard I’ve been grazing some of my poorer pasture this summer, given the lack of moisture. Here in VT, we’re not in drought, but we are definitely drier than ideal. The patches of grass next to cow pies feel so much more moist than the patches of white clover and plantain that the cattle grazed straight to the ground. Soil cover prevents evaporation, so residual is useful in this way too.