|
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | Having just now got done flipping 100 acres of rained on alfalfa, I can say that I'm glad the other 5 fields that were cut aren't in real wide swaths. That just gives you more surface area to get rained on. We don't get rain here much at all in the summer but thunderstorms can come up unexpected most any time. Some times of the year we get a fair amount of dew here as well, and the wider the swath the more hay gets bleached. That all said IF it doesn't rain and there isn't much or any dew a wide swath will dry faster I'm sure, it is just kind of a gamble whether or not you can beat a shower. I've seen more people around here going to tall narrow swaths, with the low humidity here and a good dry afternoon breeze they claim they dry just as good. The air can certianly blow through them better it would seem.
I'd love to have a picture of a windrow of hay like I just raked, the top is bleached out from the rain, but all the hay underneath is nice and green still. If it was spread out much more all that hay would be looking poor, not just the outside of the windrow. Might be back east where you have to fluff it more having it wide initially helps it dry better, I don't know what haying is like there. Here generally it stays in the swath for 3-5 days, we rake two swaths together into one windrow the day before we bale it. Sometimes it gets baled directly from the swath and never moved at all, so there the swath had better not be wider than the pickup on the baler. | |
|
Benefits of laying down a wide swath of alfalfa
