Making Quality Hay.

[Donn Hewes]

Tim, I can relate to everything you say. I have never had any kind of moisture testing equipment. But if I did I am sure I would learn how to use it. I also think you are spot on about energy conservation. Since I don’t use a tractor (I have one, but just choose not use it in the hay field) I want to make every pass count. In the past I can assure you I have been tedding and stopped to look and realized what was in front of me was drying just ans fast as were I had been. Wasted effort. I particularly like mowing in the afternoon and tedding the next morning for maximum effect. I have two side delivery rakes (new idea and JD) but don’t use the old high wheel anymore as it stopped being repairable. My side delivery teeth are adjustable for tilt, but even with the maximum tilt for a loose windrow my windrows still won’t dry much after raking. This will not have the same effect as a rotary rake it seems to me. Just not sure how much that (small?) advantage might be worth.

Back to conserving energy, minimizing the number of trips is one way to do that. This summer I hope to make some high quality hay with another technique. Grazing the ground for an early first cutting; should set me up for a full, early second cutting that should come in just when the weather is getting good. I was hoping to demonstrate this to myself last summer, but you know how that ended! My interns are still calling me up in December and suggesting we “rake some hay” this week end!

I sure hope at least one of us is out fixing a wagon or mower or something!

[Does’ Leap]

Tim, is there a portable moisture meter that you can recommend?

George

[Michael Low]

I think the portable moisture meters are a good thing.

I have seen them used quite poorly however, to make really bad, almost flammable hay. Like Tim says the hay in the field may be unevenly drying. The fellow I saw the meter poorly was averaging his moisture numbers to get the number he wanted. The moisture may even out to a degree between the dryer part of bales and the moist part, but as much as he wanted. That particular field of bales ended up very dusty and there were even some small ash pockets reported in the bales!

We have been making more loose hay on our farm and going for dry we don’t always get the best color, but our scent is great and where we used to rely on waste hay to build up our goats bedding pack we have absolutely no waste whatsoever and have had to buy straw this winter.

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[dominiquer60]

I like your point on energy conservation Tim.

I often refer to my last 2 years of college as “when I learned how I didn’t want to farm.” One class that I was happy to go to was Forages. We learned a lot of good usable information that I use all of the time, and I will admit that it was a little enjoyable beating all the kids raised on dairy farms in the hay judging contest.

Anyway the major haying advice that I remember is to work the hay as little as possible, meaning only as much as necessary. More trips meant more fuel/energy and less dry matter as a return. The general rule our professor threw around was 5%, every time you handle the hay loose or baled, you lost 5% of the Dry Matter. Of course there are a lot of variables, you loose less than 5% when you ted the first time, but if you get too dry you loose greater than 5% during the final raking. Don’t forget handling bales either. Ever time you move a bale from one place to another you loose a little. You can see your high nutrition leaf matter blow away in the breeze when the baler kicks into the wagon, or how about that pile of chaff at the bottom and top of the hay elevator, it is not all seeds and dust. “Nutrient Erosion” is certainly something to avoid as much as possible. Haying is like many things in life, finding the right balance, enough moisture but not too much, somewhere between moldy and stems striped of leafs there is a happy medium, and so many methods to get there.

[Carl Russell]

So in this light I will point out that the routines I learned were passed down from men that had tried to beat a lot of weather. They cut in the evening, tedded twice the next day, once early, once amidst the heat. They may mow again, or bale if there was any down and ready. Then the next day they either tedded again, raked and baled, or raked and baled if it didn’t need tedding.

All of this attention may seem like too much unnecessary work, but if it wasn’t dry in 2-3 days, it was likely going to be rained on, then require more work with even less quality.

In all the years I have been haying, either for myself, or as a hand, I can carry easily in two hands the number of times that we could just relax and let the hay dry…. it just don’t happen in these woods.

Part of energy efficiency is not just not expending energy, but working with systems that are beyond our control. There may be some days when you don’t have to do a thing, but on balance that is not the rule, and when we are not prepared for the consequences we end up spending more energy for less gain than we would have if we just plugged along.

Another great example of that is the crop. Sure you get tons of energy out of early maturing grass, but in weather like we have in VT, that means chopping and silage, which means wicked investments in equipment and energy. So why not grow timothy, and red clover, let it be ready by late June when it will dry better. Means less hay from fewer mowings, but better quality hay made with less effort, can support a smaller farming model, less stress on soil, etc…….. goes along with Donn’s suggestion of early grazing, which I did last summer to good results.

Anyway…. hay isn’t drying too well today, Carl

[carl ny]

Kind of a heavy dew this morning. The sun came out really nice in the early afternoon but clouded up about 3 o’clock. You’re right,not a good drying day. LOL

carl ny

[Mark Cowdrey]

The model that Carl describes is the closest so far to how I typically make hay. I have only been doing it 5 years. I mow w horses, the balance w a tractor. I have a lot of orchard grass (early) w the timothy & red clover (no alfalfa) and am on neighbors’ fields (no early grazing). I shoot to mow first cut when timothy is just coming out of the boot. By then orchard grass is past prime and starting to dry a little standing. This is ideally the 1st week of June. I held off a little this year hoping to make up the growth we didn’t have because of the dry spring.The last of my first cut (it takes about 3-4 weeks in a good year (2012)) is all past prime, but still decent. As a result, it dries faster.
I have springy, sloping fields that have a lot of variability of species, growth, and wetness of ground.
I mow w a 5′ cutter bar, ideally in the afternoon to keep the dew on top of the mown grass, not in it. Also sugar content is supposedly high that time of day. My grass board is fairly severe for the rank, vetchy areas so I need to tedd fairly soon, usually around 10 the next morning (talking first cut here) when the dew is off the surface. This spreads it out and exposes lots of rank clots that would never dry if just left laying. I then retedd when the top stems are dry enough (sometime in the afternoon) to get the tedded hay to “stand up” some to get the air circulation going. Next day, when dew is dried off the top, I tedd to “stand it back up” and get that air circulation going again. Tedd again in the afternoon and hopefully turn up the last of the green clots. Maybe walk around w a fork and do a little shaking. (I mow about 2 acres at a time.) Next day (full day 2), tedd when dew is off. In good, hot, dry, high pressure weather, if crop is not too heavy, I can rake around 3 and bale after that. If because of weather and/or heavy crop it isn’t ready, go another day of tedding in the AM and rake in bale in the PM. That is when things are just right and makes what I think of as pretty decent hay. Of course in practice, things are a little different sometimes. You develop an eye for when the hay starts going from green to brown. You want to get it before that.
I use a NH56 rake (no tooth angle adj) and a 4 star 14′ old Kuhn tedder. Would love to get a motorized forecart for the tedder. Maybe some day.
Might have been able to dry a little hay in the kitchen today, if I could have found some grass to mow….
Mark

[dominiquer60]

Carl I see the early grazing as a fine example of energy conservation and a good way to conserve feed quality, especially in your area.

My professor was not advocating mow it and leave it like you would for the silo on a hot July day. He simply warned not to work it more than necessary. If what you do is necessary for the quality that you desire, than that is what works for you. I have seen a couple places were someone just rides a tedder or rake all day because they thought that they needed to constantly be moving it to cure it. They were so into the process that they were not aware that the desired product was a few laps behind them.

The poison is in the dose, enough to dry it, not so much that you have lost all of your leaf. I can believe that balancing point is different every time and every place that hay is cut.

[Tim Harrigan]

I try to follow a process of adaptive management: look at the crop conditions, weather forecast, tools available, acreage in process, storage method etc., and adjust accordingly. Sometimes, doing nothing might be the most effective action. I learned a long time ago that a haying recipe was not going to work for me. By that I mean, for instance, first mow then ted then ted again then rake and bale. It may be that for a given cut that turns out to be the best action, but unlikely to be the best next cutting or next year. Grass or alfalfa, first cut second or third cut, VT, MI, MA or NY specific haying practices are going to be different but the bottom line will your actions create conditions that both protect hay quality and facilitate moisture removal (heat, dry air exchange, gentle handling etc.) given the required energy expenditure, etc?

Rotary rakes and rotary tedders are effective tools but are very aggressive compared to previous generations of hay handling tools. When I was younger these rotary tools did not exist. They became prevalent in the early 80’s. Earlier tedding was done with a tool that we would now call a fluffer or a kicker. We also had a bar rake/tedder combo tool. Ted, flip the lever and switch to raking. These old tedders lifted the windrow without throwing it half way across the field. I would see more continuous action with those old-style tools as being quite different, and more gentle on the hay than the current generation of rotary implements.

Rotary rakes are effective and I think are a technological advance compared to the old style tools. They sweep the hay sideways, thereby disorienting the stems and providing better air movement and exchange. They also stand the windrow up, further improving air movement. Will hay quality improve? Perhaps. Timing, speed of operation etc. come into play. Running the rotary rake or tedder too fast for ground speed will be unnecessarily rough, although this is much more likely to be a problem with a tractor compared to draft animals. If you have dust flying behind the tool you can bet your losses are increasing although that is not the only indicator. Any tool can be used skillfully or misused. Selection of these rotary tools is pretty much a one-way street; folks that try them don’t often reject them. But as George, Carl and others have pointed out you can make excellent hay without them. I think in a way they reduce the margin for error by providing a technological alternative to a certain level of experience and refined observation and judgment.

George, I know folks who are pleased with Delmhorst and Agratronix electronic moisture meters. They will set you back about $400. I prefer the Koster type driers that physically dry the hat. They are more work but more accurate and you can probably put something together for less $. If you can find a microwave oven, a small dietary scale (gram units) and an old style paper cutter with a board and pivoting knife to cut up the sample that will get you started. Then you can decide if you want to invest in an electronic version. If you web search ‘microwave hay drying’ or something like that you will find a good extension pub from Purdue Univ that describe the process.

Donn, I like the practice of cutting later in the day and tedding the next morning to break up the windrow and shake off the dew when the hay is still tough. Good strategic move. I am not sure about early grazing for a delayed hay harvest. I tried something like that last year and the regrowth for hay harvest was disappointing (grass-legume mix). Perhaps I could refine the timing and improve the results. It might be worth your while to experiment with it on a small area for a year or two before applying the approach on a large area. I am still a little more comfortable leaving a portion of the hay to harvest then switching to grazing later in the season. That seems like a reasonable way to handle the spring flush for me and get the most potential for dry hay. I suspect a very early flash graze might be OK, but extending it very far might send the wrong signal to the forage crop.

Erika, I like your balance concept, I think it is the same as my reference to adaptive management. I also like the 5% rule, as you say not exact but probably balances out over time and it gives benchmark to add to the energy conservation cost calculation. It is hard to see and believe, but dry matter losses begin at cutting and every subsequent operation including tedding, raking, baling, storage (2-5% dry matter shrinkage from microbial consumption) and feeding (4-15% waste, particulary with large round bales depending on the type of feeder). The closer the hay gets to harvest moisture the greater the dry matter losses. In fact, a 25% loss of dry matter comparing the standing crop to what gets into the animal is not uncommon in good/typical management and it can get much higher with rainfall. Many times I have looked at the pile of rich, green leaf material building up on the wagon behind the bale chute and other places and thought I should collect it for calf starter. But I never do, usually enough to do on the hay wagon without looking for more.

Obviously, some dry matter losses are unavoidable. Some are. Find the balance point, work in your comfort zone. Just be mindful and deliberate. I guess we could avoid all dry matter losses by not harvesting any hay. That doesn’t seem to work very well either. But it is a real issue and one of the reasons grazing is competitive with confinement feeding.

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