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Beresford, SD | Depends on how big a SPFH one has. Rakes don't work well, get more done driving faster in the cutter with perfect untouch windrows vs. 2 raked windrows. Big first cut windrows behind a 956 moco are just right for my little 6650......About 6 mph. Bigger cutter you'll need a merger. Speed gets a little fast in third or forth cut........normally drive as fast as I can pickup the windrow. Wads kill a chopper in haylage. Would like a merger but I'll just keep pushing hydro ahead for now. Tonnage all depends on moisture of course. I like haylage dry, otherwise it gets slimy and doesn't ferment, it pickles.....and smells awful. Haylage at 50% moisture is perfect in my books, if you ain't got a little dust it's too wet and will smell off after 30 days. At 50% moisture it packs like concrete and turns a greenish brown and smells awesome, sweet smell. Been doing haylage a few years, thankful I had dads expierence to guide me along.....still a learning curve. I'd say 7 ton dry hay should produce 14 ton of 50% moisture haylage, yes math don't work out to equal 16% dry hay, but field loss is a close to zero as one can get! I always have baler hooked up when chopping, Some days the wind blows, temps climb and humidity disappears.....before you know it you have 50 acres left to chop, the blower plugs on the chopper because hay got away from you. No biggie, fire up the baler the next morning and roll it up. | |
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Converting dry hay yields to haylage
