|
Thumb of Michigan | Well, I'm going to go against the grain maybe a little bit. Last few days/week I have (as well as you may have) experienced a pretty high humidity. My moisture meters all register hay being high in moisture. Anywhere from high teens to over 36% (high as Harvest Tech 300 would read, handheld testers were the same). I have several brands of handheld testers.
I knew the pan evaporation levels were enough for the hay to be dry, some of the hay laid out (tedded) for three days. Ground moisture was not the problem (I'm on a per se gravel pile). I remember my reading about haying out east with high humidity (I try to find and attach). Seems hay will not go below 20% moisture if humidity is above 70%??). I just baled away, while applying crop saver, while the neighbors all stopped or didn't even start.
This year I also purchased a commercial hay/corn sample dryer. I took core samples from the square bales that I baled from each of three different fields. Sent part of sample to lab and did my own moisture tests (twice on each core samples). The lab samples I couldn't send in until Monday, just got results this morning. They showed moisture at 17.74%, 14.83% and 16.30% all within 1% of what my personal tests showed.
My personal learning curve is meters are nice, hand tests can be OK (hay felt damp). But there are times that Mother Nature can definitely toss a curveball at ya.
Attachments
----------------
 Equilibruim-Hay-Mositure-Humidity.pdf (67KB - 37 downloads)
EquilibriumMoistureContent.pdf (28KB - 37 downloads)
| |
|
Hay won’t dry down
