Hay Making on a Different Scale

[LHF2019]

Has most of your stuff been rained on? Most of mine has.
Won’t stop raining.

None. Of course that is why most is still standing. Down to only needing 2 good days to get it dry now but even that's hard to get.

 

[5030]

Friggin rain here again, today. The way we are going, I'm gonna bale the lawn as well... Wierd weather. My buddy in Indiana is dry and has been.

 

[Hay Dude]

We have had rain for 22 of the last 30 days.
And we have 10 more comin.
Was talking with another fellow farmer in my area and he was surprised I was 3/4 done 1st cutting. He’s only about 1/3rd done…

 

[RjCorazza]

I get stressed out with rain just cutting large rural lawns, without the numerous factors apparently involved in haying.
I don't know how you're dealing with all that rain!

 

[5030]

Got an additional 1/3" last night. Our only slavation is the 'idiot' across the road who has to mow his lawn no matter what... He has rows of what I refer to as 'cud' windrows in his lawn. He's fun to watch actually. Yesterday afternoon he was mowing in the rain but quit when it started thundering. Like I said, thinking about cutting and bailing our lawn as it's about high enough. Hayfields are rank but have to be cut anyway. Lots of fields around here have not been cut at all.

Gonna be an interesting hay supply this fall and winter.

No way even with the crimp rolls set tight you can get enough drying window to actually make dry hay. It's frustrating to say the least.

 

[MichiganIron]

Got an additional 1/3" last night. Our only slavation is the 'idiot' across the road who has to mow his lawn no matter what... He has rows of what I refer to as 'cud' windrows in his lawn. He's fun to watch actually. Yesterday afternoon he was mowing in the rain but quit when it started thundering. Like I said, thinking about cutting and bailing our lawn as it's about high enough. Hayfields are rank but have to be cut anyway. Lots of fields around here have not been cut at all.

Gonna be an interesting hay supply this fall and winter.

No way even with the crimp rolls set tight you can get enough drying window to actually make dry hay. It's frustrating to say the least.

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

 

[ultrarunner]

I remember grandfather’s dairy farm nothing was more important than haying except milking…

 

[Hay Dude]

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

We’ve been that way since June 15th. Rest of month looks like nuthin but rain.
Cool season grasses are shot. Warm season grasses growing strong now.

I know one thing for sure. There won’t be any hay made in my area that didn’t see some rain.

 

[5030]

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

Raining here again. I was going to mow the yard, that's out as well. Sure my Kubota diesel mower can handle it and make lots if clumps.... Hay is rank but least it's standing. Looks like a forest out there... I'll have the crimp rolls set tight and hopefully I can sell it, fingers crossed on that. I really need 3 days to make it right.

 

[5030]

We’ve been that way since June 15th. Rest of month looks like nuthin but rain.
Cool season grasses are shot. Warm season grasses growing strong now.

I know one thing for sure. There won’t be any hay made in my area that didn’t see some rain.

And people that sell it will make the claim... not rained on as well. Strange weather here. The truck farmers have been pulling cabbage and replanting despite the rain. Loads of it going down the road almost continuously, headed for the processing plant at the end of the road, where they pack it and put it in a chamber that puts it in a vacuum and drops the temp and extracts the excess moisture and into waiting semi's with reefers to take it to wherever. End of the road looks like a truck stop presently.

Our road is always littered with cabbage heads that fall out of the Gaylords they put it in, in the field to transport to the processing plant. It's all picked by migrants, same crew every year. All very cordial and actually drive with common sense. I believe the crew has 30 employees. No one around here is going to do the picking, too much manual labor for youngins here to do. Hard work picking cabbage and keeping up with the ever moving conveyor plus tossing the culls. Soon as the field is picked and the ground is dry enough (which this season is a crap shoot at best), the field is fitted, fertilized and replanted. Don't know how it's playing this year as I have not been looking closely.

As a rule, they get 2 full crops.

Unlike normal row crops like wheat, corn and soybeans. cabbage stinks. Not as bad as picked sauce tomato fields, but close. Rotten sauce tomato culls are rank when laying in the sun in a picked field, terrible smell of not limed right away. I quit eating canned tomato sauce long ago, just because of the stink. Least no sauce tomato fields nearby so no stink from them, only the cabbage that comes off the gaylords, lays on the side of the road and rots.

Under Michigan RTF, it's all legal and above board.

 

[redman135]

Hay makers, if it is to wet to make hay why does noone make wrapped silage? Are there no silage customers? or no wrappers?
Where I am it is impossible to make hay when you have a surplus(late spring/early summer), so it is all bunker or wrapped silage. We transport wrapped silage like you transport hay.
Any hay is later 1/2 of summer and you play dogem with rain most years.

 

[Hay Dude]

Hay makers, if it is to wet to make hay why does noone make wrapped silage? Are there no silage customers? or no wrappers?
Where I am it is impossible to make hay when you have a surplus(late spring/early summer), so it is all bunker or wrapped silage. We transport wrapped silage like you transport hay.
Any hay is later 1/2 of summer and you play dogem with rain most years.

The OP wraps hay

 

[LHF2019]

Last weekend 50 acres of dry hay we baled. This weekend all last minute decisions and uncertainty. Doing a whopping 5 acres.

 

[LHF2019]

Didn't do any hay all week. Very unsettled. Mowed a fallow field to get it ready to spray on Thursday. Heavy rain came through..........................except for me. Did get enough that it would have shut down baling and ruined your day. The weather videos I watch say the same thing. Enough precipital water to make the atmosphere pop but the rain is hyper localized. 10 minutes north over a half an inch. 10 minutes south quarter inch. 5 minutes south over a tenth and me..............0.05. At least could somewhat measure it. Enough to get the tractor hood wet then end. Not making any hay and our lawn is starting to turn brown. Just depends on how lucky you feel with pulling the hay trigger. Plenty of moisture in the ground still but the srface is getting pretty dry finally.

 

[Hay Dude]

Same down here. Pop up thunderstorms are the norm every day.
Last year it was ZERO rain late summer.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

 

[5030]

Didn't do any hay all week. Very unsettled. Mowed a fallow field to get it ready to spray on Thursday. Heavy rain came through..........................except for me. Did get enough that it would have shut down baling and ruined your day. The weather videos I watch say the same thing. Enough precipital water to make the atmosphere pop but the rain is hyper localized. 10 minutes north over a half an inch. 10 minutes south quarter inch. 5 minutes south over a tenth and me..............0.05. At least could somewhat measure it. Enough to get the tractor hood wet then end. Not making any hay and our lawn is starting to turn brown. Just depends on how lucky you feel with pulling the hay trigger. Plenty of moisture in the ground still but the srface is getting pretty dry finally.

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I don't and just like clockwork we got a half inch last night, right on schedule. That hay is all rank but it has to come off at some point and I'll most likely give it all to my cistomer for free. just to get the firlds clean and ready to spray.

Terrible year for me but now that I downsized, it's not critical, just a hobby for me now. Looking back at downsizing, less maintenace on the tractors and implements less road miles equal longer tire wear as well and new tires like everything else, isn't cheap. The guy who took my off farm fields, only runs small squares and he's been getting the same precip we are and I bet his hay is junk if he even cut it. When I gave them back, they needed fertilized and overseeded anyway and when I drove by, it apperared he did neither. Not my issue now I just observe. Have no idea who he sells them to and don't care either.

 

[RayIN]

Friggin rain here again, today. The way we are going, I'm gonna bale the lawn as well... Wierd weather. My buddy in Indiana is dry and has been.

Been raining hard here in Monroe Cy IN for about a hour, now slowing to a gentle rain. The contractor just today got my old pole barn down and some of the mess cleaned up. All that loose dirt floor will be a mud pit Monday morning.

 

[5030]

Got it here again this AM, 1/4" and supposed to rain tonight. Very frustrating. My cousin, south of Chicago told me he hasn't had any rain for a month. I'll cut it one way or another and it's rank so I'll give it away. It has to come off to get overseeded and fertilized. I have a forrest surrounding the farm presently. Lawn is about 6" high as well. Gonna be making cud windrows when it gets mowed.

Terrible year for dry hay, worst I can remember.

 

[Hay Dude]

I caught a break today and got a field baled. This summer, it’s more of just pure luck when you get a sunny day and you’re ready to bale.

 

[5030]

It seems apparent that the precip we get travels to you a day later. I have some really rank hay standing that needs to come off so I can fertilize the fields.

When I can get it off with the crimp rolls cranked tight, I'll do it and I'll give the bales away to my customer.

Been a terrible year to make dry hay.

If I had an available ditch to rake it into, I'd go that route. Problem is, I don't and I cannot bale it for baleage either.