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Little River, TX | There are many adaptations to work with the basic rules of hay production.
Haylage/silage is an interesting but unknown system, here, mostly.
One is the nutritional value of the forage is lowest first thing in the morning and increased during the day until the hay is cut. Then until the hay drys down to maybe 48% moisture energy is burnt up by respiration.
Here in my operation I can cut late enough to pick up maybe 4% additional carbohydrates, and then my hay looses 2% of these carbs. Net gain 2% of nonstructural carbohydrates.
With my mowers I can leave a 6' swath which is 2/3's of the available ground with hay on it. I use this at less than 2 tons/a of hay. Above 2 tons I use a tedder as soon as I can get back after mowing, resulting in 100% of the ground covered by hay.
It is true the 75% of hay curing is from sunshine, but that is a floating value and mostly a rule of thumb. One December I went 14 days between cutting and baling. The sun went into hiding right after finishing mowing. December hay should cure in about a week here.
Here wheels over damp hay does not appear to be a problem.
All this is a learning in process situation for me. Most of the things I did 55 years ago have been modified or completely changed.
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