late first cut hay

[mitchmaine]

each year i forget and re-remember how much our horses like late hay. broke two bales on the wagon the other night and pitched them into the pasture and gone. every leaf and stalk. we cut the same pattern each summer and get into the front field last, about this time every year. so the hay is dead and gone by to seed, with second cut coming up through the bottom. full of weeds. dock, milkweed, goldenrod, pigweed, lamb quarter, sorrel and so on. a horse salad, i guess. then i wonder about the june july fight to get hay in under the rain, and think how much easier it would be to cut in august and september. one cut. cool dry weather. any thoughts or experince on this matter would be appreciated. thanks, mitch

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Mitch, I think about this all summer as well. As we slip into less and less energy available we will be looking for ways to use less. This method of making hay would be good for plants as they would have already gone to seed and started store energy in their roots. There would be lots of hay and fine quality for most classes of animals. I am not sure it would be up to sheep standards, but I might do an experiment. I have about an acre and half of this very hay yet to mow. It was too wet early and I never came back for it. Traditionally hay was probably made later in summer, when the weather was easier to work with.

This hay can be tough mowing, but it should be easy to dry and bale.

[mitchmaine]

hey donn, i know what you mean about toughmowing. eight or ten deer have been bedding down in that hay and browsing the swale grass hard. looks like a putting green insome places. must be something there they like better than the second crop close by.
anyway my horse mower gets caught up in that lodged grass some easy and its more like ripping than mowing. the mowerconditioner hardly does any better but gives the horses a break. once it is cut it makes in a day.

[Rivendell Farm]

There are probably as many opinions on how and when to cut hay as there are people doing it. Quality is definitely better if it’s cut early when the weeds are young and tasty, but it does take more work to make more cuttings. It seems now the weather patterns are more erratic than in the past with drought likely to occur in any summer month. Same with long rainy periods. I think cutting early and more often helps control weeds in the stand that can’t keep up with the alfalfa. Mature burdock in the hay gets burrs in wool. Cutting late I get large stems of something unidentifiable that even the horses look at with disgust. Yesterday I baled hay that was mowed the day before, a third cutting if you count early grazing as a cutting, and was some of the most beautiful alfalfa/ trefoil/grass you can imagine. Sheep dream of this sort of hay in the winter. Bob

[Vicki]

Some weeds will actually increase with early cuttings because the canopy is opened up to let in more sun. Same reason why your clovers take off after an early cut. Queen Ann’s lace is one that will take advantage of early cut grass. The grasses and weeds have their life cycles and maturities, just like various garden vegetables.

[Big Horses]

….and then there’s some of us that only get ONE cutting anyway! I’ve still got about 200 tons to cut…just waiting for the water to drain. We’re not that late, really. One thing we’ve noticed this year, the creeping meadow foxtail and canary grass are not only much taller (like way over your head) but the leaves are much taller in proportion as well. The horses are loving it!!
John

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