One of the steel hydraulic lines on my tractor steering system decided to spring a leak last night and fixing it took a bit longer than expected this morning. Things seem to find critical times then break I guess. I replaced two steel lines with hoses and was ready to go again this afternoon.

However I missed my planned tedding time of after the dew burned off this morning. Tedded yesterday's pasture, grass and alfalfa in mid afternoon.  I went over the windrows with the moisture meter and was surprised at how effective the tedding was in today's weather.

The "past prime" pasture with heavy wet grass mowed yesterday was at about 9% at 6 pm. I raked it hoping to bale before dark but just ran out of daylight before I could switch over and get back with the baler.

I am very impressed with what tedding does to speed drying in  both grass and alfalfa.

I do need to thank 17821X for his suggestion to run the tedder at only 350 pto rpm in alfalfa.

Tedding grass I ran the tedder at full 540 rpm pto and drove about 5-6 mph. It leaves almost a 100% cover of the ground - about as "wide and thin" as you can get.

In alfalfa however I first ran at full spedd and you could see the leaves coming off. Then remembered 17821X's suggestion of 350 rpm.  Slowing the rotor down and shifting up to maintain about 5 mph, the tedder functioned very differently. It lifted the alfalfa windrows but did not create the full width "carpet" as in grass and did not seem to lose leaves. The lifted, standing, tedded windrows though looked like they would dry very quickly as air goes through them. 

Here are some pictures. This is a small 4 rotor tedder. I drove down between two of the moco windrows and it left a very nice uniform thin mat about 18 ft wide behind.

The "past prime" pasture and the main grass hay would have been baled by tonight if I didn't spend half a day fixing hydraulic lines. The alfalfa would have been close.

This is ground that was mowed 10 am to about 3 pm yesterday in my post below.

I had a few folks stop to watch. Talking with several neighbors and long time hay people, they did not know of anyone tedding in the area previously. A couple rotary rakes in the area but no tedders. 

I'm hoping the "40% chance of showers" tonight and tomorrow holds off until I get this raked and baled.

Jim

Edit: for comparison, the last picture (581) is about the same spot in the "past prime" pasture as the next to last (006) about 24 hours earlier.

(IMG_0617_tedding grass at 540 pto rpm about 24 hours after mowed 061913.JPG)

(IMG_0625_tedding grass at 540 pto rpm about 24 hours after mowed 061913.JPG)

(IMG_0626_alfalfa windrows before (left) and after (right) tedding with 350 rpm pto 061913.JPG)

(2013_06_19_Past Prime pasture raked after tedding yesterdays moco windrows 006r.jpg)

(IMG_0581_cutting past-prime pasture for hay 061813.JPG)

IMG_0617_tedding grass at 540 pto rpm about 24 hours after mowed 061913.JPG (85KB - 197 downloads)

IMG_0625_tedding grass at 540 pto rpm about 24 hours after mowed 061913.JPG (95KB - 203 downloads)

IMG_0626_alfalfa windrows before (left) and after (right) tedding with 350 rpm pto 061913.JPG (93KB - 200 downloads)

2013_06_19_Past Prime pasture raked after tedding yesterdays moco windrows 006r.jpg (88KB - 188 downloads)

IMG_0581_cutting past-prime pasture for hay 061813.JPG (91KB - 200 downloads)