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2023 Time To Rock and Roll

4K views 53 replies 23 participants last post by  Hayjosh 
#1 ·
Looks like our first window of The year starting tomorrow. Of course, I’m at a horse show supporting my wonderful wife but cutting Monday should be fine. Temps only getting to high 70s but very low chance of rain to Saturday afternoon. Ya gotta take advantage of the opportunities you get and the normally available Memorial Day run looks like a washout
 
#42 ·
Ouch, I feel your pain. My buddy made about 50 ac this week a couple of miles from me and made 5-6 4 5s per ac and probably didn’t fertilize. The difference-the field was on an island in the Shenandoah river. Beautiful soils that never run out of water
 
#43 · (Edited)
Been rolling pretty well here, mixed with a lot of monkey see monkey do’s. Some guys you wonder are they even looking at the forecast.

First week went well, cut surplus pastures on May 16 and ted 17th and 18th. Stems were engorged from the rain preceding heavy rain so had fair amount of stem moisture despite conditioning. The 19th I saw rain moved up for Saturday morning so I waited as long as I could before raking, 1:30 raking and baling close to 4. Wasn’t without issues, netwrap had intermittent spread issues and then it was ripping on part of roll. I gave up and went to twine to finish field.


13-15% moisture reading, hustled to move bales off. Then the rain didn’t happen, not for another day.

Next the forecast over 10 days and longterm didn’t look too good until the cold front pushed over. Lot of 70s and partly cloudy and mostly cloudy popped up but the weather people said extended dry period. Rolled the dice and mowed Sunday, 21st. Laid down heavy full swath and knew I had a lot of green slugs to fluff out. Ted on Monday and left it alone on Tuesday.


Hard to explain but the cloud cover and breaks of sunshine were nerve wracking. The saving grace was overnight humidity was fairly low. Then Wednesday came, the humidity after lunch was in teens to 20’s… the entire field was passing twist test and stems were perfect. I was not expect to be baling until Thursday at earliest. Hook up the rake then hurried to baling. Super awesome day. 7-12% moisture, worked out to 7.1 4x5s to the acre. I have never baled hay with the humidity that low in May. My fertilizer timing was on point and we had a perfect rainfall schedule, a stark contrast to last year where we were dry much of April and May.

Fertilized 5 pastures Friday in less than ideal winds but perfect soft rain worked it in. Longterm once again shows poor hay making windows. I suppose I’ll take the time to wash the dust and pollen off the tractor.


 
#44 ·
Here in SW Missouri we had some guys starting right before Memorial day as we had 5-6 days dry forecast. What I'm hearing is yield is very low. I'm watching the weather closely but we will probably start our grass hay harvest after June 1 on hopes the next couple days of rain forecast is close to accurate and we get a shower. Hay stems are short and undergrowth not overly thick. Hay preorders have come in very strong so there might be some customers dissapointed with what producers can provide. What are people hearing on mixed grass hay prices? If last year was the year of the sixes. $60 4x5 and $6 square, this might be the year of the sevens in our area. $70 4x5 and $7 square. This is what I'm seeing so far on new crop SW Missouri
 
#49 ·
finished cutting this am. Much better yields for the last two days. the windrow is in the bottom where there is better moisture. Always makes over 100 bales per ac, think one year it made 135 with orchard grass, not timothy. Pretty rank new growth timothy coming in from overseeding efforts. Low stem percentage. If you are cutting hay in Va on May 31, you have an orchard grass pollen issue. Luckily, I have never had debilitating hay fever. Really liking my JD 6310. Great hay tractor.
 
#51 ·
Yep, windrows look about like many of mine. Kinda blows, gorgeous product though
 
#53 ·
Having the opposite problems here in northern WY, my stuff was ready to go almost 3 weeks ago but the rain won’t stop(not normal). Starting to lodge a bit and I’m getting antsy, huge fertilizer bill here too went 100-0-30-15 this spring. “Hmm 40% chance for next 3 days with a 60% in there maybe it’ll all miss me“ is how my thoughts are starting to go til someone talks me off the ledge. Haha
Sky Cloud Plant Natural landscape Tree
 
#54 ·
I finished up all of mine early last week. It was pretty disappointing. The grass looked beautiful and seemed thick but grass was so dry it packed down to nothing. I averaged 50 bales per acre and that was with over 600 lb/acre of fertilizer at $200/acre.

I did make this video on first cut in one of my favorite fields. You can see it’s really nice hay, just not a lot of it. Mowed up a fawn too.

 
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