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s.w. Wi. | Does hay lose much quality if mowed at night?
I'm talking about 2nd cut alfalfa/grass.
Just 40 acres. |
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Tablerock Ranch eastern Wa | they say the sugars in alfalfa goes down and doesn't come up until 10 am so best alfalfa after that------ I say make hay every chance you get ! |
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EC Nebraska | t rock - 8/30/2015 20:28
they say the sugars in alfalfa goes down and doesn't come up until 10 am so best alfalfa after that------ I say make hay every chance you get !
The sugar would be lowest just before dawn, so I would guess cutting before midnight would still be pretty sweet hay. Just a guess.
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central - east central Minnesota - | culter - 8/30/2015 20:21 Does hay lose much quality if mowed at night? I'm talking about 2nd cut alfalfa/grass. Just 40 acres. From a "Drying" aspect - hay has the most respiration (amount of time to loose moisture) the first couple hours after cutting. I would suspect, cutting during the daylight, sun of the day, would give it the most respiration possible. Cutting at night would give less .. . . and of course the sugars mentioned above . . . Maybe Hay Wilson will chime in ? |
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King City, Mo | Hay Wilson is having trouble getting logged in he said via email. He had comments about the strip mowed alfalfa but couldntget logged in. So might try his email as Bill loves to talk about putting up quality hay. |
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| Not sure what you mean by this: " ...hay has the most respiration (amount of time to loose moisture..." Respiration is the process down at the cellular level which converts stored sugars into energy and CO2, so that the plant can live. Just like people do. Respiration will continue to occur, until the plant is shut down. The goal is to shut down the plant as quickly as possible. Regarding the debate of whether to mow in the morning, in the evening, or at night........ it depends on where you live. If you live in the humid East Coast, you want as many hours of sunlight as you can possibly get to dry the hay out as quickly as possible. If you live in the arid West, you can wilt hay quickly by low humidity, so mowing late in the afternoon or even at night can work. What works *here* may not work *there*, and what works *there* may not work *here*. At least that is the way I see it. |
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Northwest Ohio | In my horrible intreptation of hay Wilson lessons... Cutting in the morning helps because that is when the stomata is open the most. The biggest help in drying is to have the swath as wide as possible. |
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| You are correct about the wide swath. Here's an article that may help clear things up. This article talks about conditioning the stem. There is a guy in New York who promotes "Hay in a Day" (actually haylage). His theory/ teaching is that using conditioning rolls actually breaks the stem and slows the drying process. He says that mowing - no conditioning - and laying in a wide swath is actually the best. I think he also advocates tedding a couple of hours after mowing. The most important part is to mow and lay it wide, and get it to wilt quickly.
Edited by martin 8/31/2015 07:56
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Douglass Kansas | From an article in a hay magazine I read last week it said you want to get the hay below 60% moisture as fast as possible to stop respiration. So, in a hot dry weather midday would work well. In cool humid weather morning may work better if there is not to much dew. |
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NE Iowa | I've read several studies about the feed value being greater if cut in the afternoon. The reality is in our climate the best way to make high quality hay is to get it made with the least amount of nights that it has to sit through. Our dew is so heavy almost every night that every night it sits alfalfa loses some feed value and tonnage. In my opinion the best thing to do is cut first thing in the morning to maximize the hours of sunlight on the day the day it is cut. Cut in the morning, spread it wide, use a tedder, rake when the dew is coming off, and bale the same day it was raked. Doing those things are way more important then time of day it is cut. |
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Mowing hay at night
