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West Texas | Here's a couple pics of the bluestem falling to the doublerower for your enjoyment. After this cutting was baled and stacked, I grew another crop of seed, and then repeated the cutting, baling, and stacking. For sheer tonnage, the Old World bluestems have switchgrass beat. And the "pretty good" palatability rating doesn't hurt either.
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| Hey Neil, would it make much difference if the hay was not crimped other than drydown? Thanks for the pics. |
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West Texas | Don, yes, it does make quite a difference, going through a crimper. It bales better, for one thing. It dries down much quicker, as well. I've tried cutting the same grass with the MacDon header which has no crimper ... lets just say it's an experience I'll not repeat. Neither the round baler nor the square baler liked it. Too slick, too straight, too long.
Fine-stemmed bermudagrass doesn't seem to care if it's crimped or not, but since it's for baling, I use the doublerowers anyway. They make better baler windrows.
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| I forgot about the ability to even pick the stuff up with a baler pickup. Some of your ideas have me thinking from time to time about how we might improve the tall fescue harvest around here so we might someday be able to bale for hay rather than just straw. |
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Little River, TX | Not a Dingned dang tree in sight let alone a doulble ding dang hill. Have I mentioned I hate trees? Like to see where I am going for the next 2 days travel also. That is truly beautiful country. Do you plant OW Bluestem with a grain drill, corn planter, or broadcast & rolled? Is it a true bunch grass? Can it also be planted with rhizomes? |
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Little River, TX | Treat grass hay like it is alfalfa hay and the quality and production will improve.
Can I assume you are on the dry side? If that so you have different challenges and incentives than we do closer to the humid east.
I have never seen let alone harvested your grasses but I must say, here, grass hay will shatter more leaves than alfalfa. If you can bale at 55% to 65% humidity at night that might help.
Bermudagrass for hay is just about fool proof, but there plenty of hay waders who are trying to disprove that.
A symplistic reply from a simple minded Texian.
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West Texas | My kinfolk refer to it as "scenically-challenged", Bill, but they're also town people, so what do they know.
I do have trees around the house for shade and windbreak, and that's pretty common out here on the Llano. See a tree, there's either a house there, or there once was a house. You can pretty much tell the age of a home by the size of the shade trees.
For this particular bluestem field, we tried a drill, and planted in a crosshatch pattern and aimed to plant 4 lbs/acre PLS. Worked just as well as the field I planted with a cotton planter using fuzzy-cottonseed hoppers or the one we broadcast and rolled. Equal success, no matter the method or variety. Not a very fussy plant, but some varieties take longer to set than others.
Don't scrimp on the pounds per acre.
The info I have on the OWB indicates it spreads from a Mother plant to fill in gaps between other Mother plants. I believe it propagates by seed. Once a Mother plant is established, attempting to fill in bare spots with another planting results in something resembling autotoxicity. I guess these Mamas are out to protect their turf.
Oh yeah ... it's pretty dry here ... humidity tends to be 20% or less. All my baling is done in the morning, when RH is at least 55% to start with. Below that, and I'm baling straw.
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| Ya, it is quite dry here in the time of grass hay. Usually low humidity, sometimes breezy. What I am wondering is if someone were to come up with a way to direct cut our fescue (locally a dryer is what you use for drying your clothes), that would eliminate the swathing cost and accompanied shatter loss. Then, if it were possible to cut right behind the combine with a mower, be it with or without conditioner, I wonder if we could bust into the hay market some as well as seed. That's basically what Neil is doing, and I know a few in MO that direct cut their fescue, but they all seem to have those elusive dryer facilities.
I even talked some more with the boss about it today, mentioning Neils cotton machine and the idea behind it. Just need to get up the courage to try something new sometime and see what comes of it. Right now, behind the combine that runs the entire swathe that was cut at ground level, there is nothing but brittle stems, no leaves. The leaves that were on it are ground to fine dust in the combine. That's why they call it straw I guess.:-) They do use it for supplimental feed roughage in Japan and other places as well as some for domestic feed and bedding. |
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West Texas | Have I ever mentioned my fancy drying facilities? It consists of a 30" peanut dryer fan, and 3 20'x8'x5' trailers with false perforated floors. Not even a shed to cover the trailers during the drydown process, although that's on the to-do list. I currently protect my seed from the elements with a tarp. Very high-tech. 
Do you have a pic of your fescue just prior to cutting? I might be able to offer a suggestion or two as what might work and what might not.
The guy I grow seed for likes to use Shelbourne headers when possible, but he will swath if he has to. He's grown even more varieties of seed than I have. He was one of the guys that told me my grass stripper was unworkable; glad I didn't listen to him. He had to come and see it for himself. He ended up taking a bunch of pictures.
You oughta set aside a few acres to test your ideas on. Start with a small-scale model of whatever gizmo or process that you wanna try. Then work up from there.
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South Africa | Sent you an e-mail, didya get it? |
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| Hey there Marius. I sent you a new address, did you get it? I'll resend it. |
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| Hi Neil. Yes you did mention once about your dryer setup. That is why I started to consider the idea a while back. I thought, hey, that is an awesome way to recycle some technology and it would be cheap enough that a guy could try it and see if it would work here.
Tell me more about the guy that uses the stripper head. Do you have a contact number or email addy that you would share? Would he mind me calling or emailing to visit about it. I see there is a place that has 3 shelbournes for sale. I've been trying to find someone that has ran a stripper in fescue, especially turf type, but to no avail. I know some folks have done it, but they are so few and far between, I cant seem to get their number.
Here's one picture that I was able to find easily on the puter. I have more, I just need to find them.
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NE SD | I've always wondered how the small HP of the bi-directionals can handle two mo-co's. A single 16' is enough to make a 120hp tractor know it's there in tough going. Then again, I crimp pretty hard too.
Edited by Chad H 1/8/2008 19:41
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West Texas | I haven't noticed any power drag, running two 16' swathers. And I crimp pretty good too. The TV might only have 105 hp, but it makes full use of what it has. Once the cutterbar teeth dull or break, the drag becomes noticeable, in that it takes more effort to push through the crop.
The auxiliary hydraulics are awesome. Combined with PTO, you can drive things you would never consider otherwise.
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West Texas | Don, check this out:
I can't promise they will want to help you out ... you're the "competetion". But Darcy is a good joe, so it's worth the try. If you get hold of Bob, even better.
http://www.turnerseed.com
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Little River, TX | Would like to drop by about a year from now.
Depending if I go to the NM hay Association Conference, in Ruidoso number one.
If I do depending on if I plan to stop by Dutch at Seminole on the way out or the way back from Roswell and Ruidoso.
We like to visit with Dutch for a few hours, visit with old friends in Roswell and Amarillo.
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West Texas | We've been planting some seed block wheat for them for the last few years. Never met them though. (talked on phone) |
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makin' hay
