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Garland Maine | Here (1500 miles to the east) I do almost all plain grass hay, and to answer your question: it depends on how long the hay making window is. When trying to hurry the drying process we try to ted about 4 hours after mowing, ted early the next day like 9am, rake into small windrows that second day at noon so the breeze can get through them. Lighter grass hay will be ready to bale by 3pm on the second day, providing there was good wind and decent sun. Changing one factor there adds a day. With excellent drying conditions or a longer window we can skip one pass with either the rake or tedder.
My goal is always to get strings around some of the hay the day after mowing, and leave part for the day after. That reduces losses from popup thunderstorms, and has served me well for years.
Now with alfalfa to reduce leaf loss I would try the following:
Mow into a swath of about half the width of your mower. Do not drive on that swath because you want the wind to take some of the initial moisture out.
About 4 hours after mowing run the tedder across to spread the swaths wide.
The second day rake into small windrows to get the hay up off the cold wet ground and always roll that windrow over onto "clean" ground where you already raked. This will let the breeze through the windrow.
The third day roll the windrows over. A V-rake works well for this to merge two or four small windrows into one pass for the baler. Typically three hours of sun will bake the dew out of the windrow and you are ready to bale. | |
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New to the Tedder world got some questions
