Brian, I have been tedding my hay since 1978 here in N.W. Oregon. That reduced our cycle time from mowing to baling from 4 or 5 days to 3 days and we saw quality improvement right from the beginning. We produce much more orchard and timothy hay than alfalfa. When working alfalfa we have found the things mentioned by many other folks to be best for us. We ted as soon as possible after mowing using a mower conditioner. If we mow the day prior to tedding we ted at night or the next day while the dew is still present. In eastern oregon they usually don't need to ted like we do on the west side of the Cascades, since they have little to no dew in comparison to us on the west side. The east side hay can be down for several days and there is almost no bleaching. On the west side, after the dew hits the hay, the portion that got wet bleaches to some degree. The more days it lays down, the more bleach we get, getting the hay into a bale ASAP is very important to keep good color and quality. We have used Lely tedder rakes over the years. Really prefer the action provided by that rake and they are very easy on the hay. When tedding alfalfa we usually slow down the r.p.m. rotation rate of the rake so there is a softer impact of the tines hitting the hay. Watching your video it appeared your rake is rotating about 25% faster than we would run in the same material to preserve leaves. Using the Lely rake we would move along at 4 to 5 mph, depending on ground conditions and run the rake rotation speed as slow as possible and still get a nice even spread and fluff of the hay. Both you and Travis make great videos and I find your discussion and reasoning regarding why you do things the way you do to be an extremely important part of your productions. Nick, North West Farmer
Ideally, alfalfa should be tedded ASAP after mowing to accelerate drydown while reducing leaf loss. If the ground is damp, though, you will get a better result by letting the exposed ground dry as much as possible first. The decision of how soon to tedd really is balancing those two factors out.
I agree with you 100% when you said you guys have to find what methods work best for you. I learned 40 years ago that what works well for 1 farmer doesn't always work well for another. Even a farm just 1 or 2 miles away isn't going to be the exact same conditions as your farm. What works in the field across the road may not work the same on the other side of the road. Keep up the great work guys.
Yall are doing it right... The main thing with alfalfa, like you said, is not to knock the leaves off... most of the palatability and nutrition is in the leaves. You don't have to handle it with 'kid gloves' like you would for dairy cattle, since you're feeding beef cattle, but you want to preserve as much of the quality and feed value there as you can, obviously. I've heard that tine conditioners are a lot harder on alfalfa, but it looks to be doing a good job... probably if you were REALLY trying to put up absolute top-notch dairy feed, you'd probably want roller conditioners in your mo-co, but for mixed stands of grass and alfalfa and just grass, the tines are a lot cheaper, easier, and more durable, and still do a "good enough" job. Tedding the alfalfa mixed stand right behind the mower is a good idea... the plants are still at their maximum moisture, and thus are still limber and "tough" (as in they won't have the leaves knocked off as easily). EVERY time you handle alfalfa you're losing SOMETHING (as legumes are much more easily damaged than grasses) but by tedding it ASAP after cutting, you're doing the minimum damage POSSIBLE while still tedding it out. Spread it wide and then leave it be til you're ready to put it in the windrow for the final drydown and baling (I presume you're raking at about 50% moisture to minimize leaf shatter??) ALL hay operations are about getting the best result for the least damage... Basically the highest quality a forage will EVER be is the MOMENT IT IS CUT. It's "all downhill from there"... If the stuff is weedy or over-ripe or low quality or whatever, that's the best it'll ever be, and no amount of finessing during the haymaking (or ensiling) process will make it any better. BUT, you can REALLY lose a LOT of dry matter yield and QUALITY by handling hay WRONG after it is cut... You want to time the operations to get the best RESULTS possible with the LEAST damage or loss... and sometimes that's a tradeoff... There's NO "one size fits all" routine with haymaking-- every time you do it, it's slightly different, and you have to adjust your timing/methods for the crop, conditions, climate, weather, ground moisture, etc. And, of course grass hay is a LOT more forgiving than legume (alfalfa) hay as well. Best of luck and great job! OL J R :)
Generally grass is tedded multiple times (thats why i didn't get why you got such a small tedder) But in alphalfa some people completely eliminate tedding and instead just use a mower with a roller conditioner and spreading vanes, since it preserves the leaves.
I only ever ted my grass hay once (unless it gets rained on). Tedding once and I can make 24 hr hay. Even then it's at 8% moisture. The number of times required to ted really depends on humidity where you are. Once humidity gets to 70% the hay dries very poorly.
Hi Ryan! I see there at the end you're demonstrating the vacuum tedder as opposed to the finger pickup type. Hey nice job on the spraying, too. No dead hay crop at the edge of the row crops.
Another very informative video. We enjoy your narrative on your reasoning on the why and how you do certain things. With 100k subscribers I'd suggest others do too.
search around, there is video of a trailer setup to tow a car backwards, but the effect is that it looks like someone is reversing at around 40 KPH, funny as
Hey Ryan I always try raking my Alfalfa hay in the mornings while the dew is on the hay. This keeps the Alfalfa leaves moist so they do not fall off during the raking process
Same me, I also tedding early in the morning when the dew is on or just before the dew sets off. You also need some luck with weather, and you got your self a good hay
Leon Habot yes very true. And the best rake to rake alfalfa with is a wheel rake. I have used all styles of rakes in the past and I do not loose very much content at all with the wheel rakes
if de hay is to dry the leefs will fall of. only the stemps remain the leefs contain much of the protein your calfs need to grow greetings from austria
Here's another thought, we would mow with a New Holland hay bind and windrow the alfalfa in a nice tight windrow. Let the top completely dry and just flip it from top to the bottom and let the bottom dry then bale it. The less you touch it the more leaves you keep.
I'm in Northern Ireland, I do work for a contractor and he uses triple mowers on a John Deere 6155r, and it will cut 30 foot in 1 pass, you should consider a system like this for the 8235r if you got a front hitch
seems to me you cutting the right time. and yes you have beef cattle however you want a high reletive feed value, high protien builds muscle so you want meat on your beef cattle.. good quality is still important with beefy cattle
That must be in the very south. Up by Stockholm it hasn't rained for a month (until yesterday), and most people haven't even gotten a second cut yet...
love your videos can u pls explain why your field layouts are so different. i.e. shapes and multiple crops in one. i've just never seen i done like u guys do. would think i would make a great video
It's called contour farming. If you farm in an area with rolling terrain, rather than having rectangular fields that follow the section lines or a strict north, south, east, west orientation, you might opt instead to have irregularly shaped fields that conform to the hills in your terrain. The idea is that with row-crops like corn and soybeans, you keep the rows perpendicular to the slope of the terrain. This helps mitigate erosion - in a heavy rain, the rivulets of water are obstructed by the rows, rather than running down between the rows and cutting little gullies. By making the fields relatively narrow and alternating the different crops, you create further barriers to keep the soil in place. It's a very good conservation practice.
Enjoy your vidieos. wouldn't it make one less trip over the field if you could cut the hay and have it spread out behind the mower instead of in winrows? My grandfather cut hay with a sickle mower , let it lay for a day or two, then raked it into winrows. Course that was 60 years ago... keep up the good work
Ryan can you offset your tedder so he throws the hay more to the inside or not, because your throwing much against the corn. In the netherlands are a lot of ditches around the fields and our tedder can be offset to one side so he doesn't throws it in the ditches. Just an question.
Hello, just started following this channel awhile ago. Always been interested in farming. Just curios on how the farm makes its money. Selling cattle or milk? The hay and stuff is done to feed the cattle. So I'm assuming you sell the beef or milk. Also what kind of money is it for your scale. I'm in oregon and unless you have a pretty big farm the money is not so good these days. Anyhow love the channel man!
I notice an overwhelming majority of tedders are tow behind,any ideas on why that is. I really like my 3 point 4 basket Fella because it is so easy to maneuver and transport and it takes two rows out of my JD 1360 with no problems...
Easier to hitch up and go, if you don't need the additional maneuverability of the 3 point units... same reason rakes are mostly drag-type rather than 3 point... Later! OL J R :)
Basically, yes. But it's a little more than just a mower. See how on the hitch it says MoCo? That's John Deere's little shorthand for mower-conditioner. This type is also popularly known as a discbine - it cuts the hay with spinning disks - versus a haybine, which cuts with an oscillating sickle bar and is typically an older style machine. This machine also has a flail mechanism following the cutters, which cracks the stalks on the hay in order to allow the moisture the evaporate out faster so it can be baled sooner. Other similar machines might have a pair of rollers that crunch the hay between them, accomplishing the same task. Fun stuff.
It isn't when you need it to dry down enough to store as dry hay after you cut it. It's actually more efficient to remove the shields (or set them to spread the swath to maximum width) on the back of the mower-conditioner and forego the tedding operation altogether... if you can spread it full-width behind the mower, there's no need to ted it (unless it won't dry on bottom in thick swaths, then you have to ted it anyway once it dries out some on top. In the old days (and still in certain locations and certain crops and conditions) the mower-conditioner gathered the crop into a narrow swath behind it by funneling it through the shields, so that you had a ready-made windrow for chopping (which is done basically as soon as the forage is wilted flat) or to allow the wet ground to dry out between swaths (so the crop could be raked later onto dry ground, or tedded out onto dry ground). Basically for most conditions (not all) you want the cut crop spread back onto the ground the full width of the cutter for fastest drying, then rake it at about 40-50% moisture so you don't lose too many leaves, and allow it to finish drying in the windrow for baling. Later! OL J R :)
No, that's for shredding material to bits... you want to keep the hay as intact as possible, which is why a hay mower is designed to snip it off a little above the ground (using either a sicklebar operating like scissors, or spinning high-speed disks with little lawnmower-like blades about 2-3 inches long). The intact forage is then either discharged back onto the ground (no conditioner) or passes through either crimping rollers that crack and break the stems open to dry down faster, or a set of crimping flails that scrape the waxy outer layer off the stem and bruise the stems so they dry out faster. The rollers are basically for all crops, and the flails do better in grass (but can be used in alfalfa if you make them less aggressive by adjusting them properly). The Rhino would grind and chop up the plants so much that basically it would destroy them-- nothing coming out the back but mulch, and that doesn't make good hay. You'd lose most of your yield as well as most of the quality. Later! OL J R :)
