I don't think this is what UW-Madison's Dr Dan Undersander was talking about in his "Hay (dry) in a Day" talks.

On Monday of this week I had a pasture of about 12 acres, my winter bull pasture, that had good grass and clover growth but was also full of foxtail and generally getting past prime grazing status. I had planned to graze it earlier but the nearest group of cows and calves was still finishing another pasture.  The weather forecast was for rain Monday night and pretty much the rest of this week, as it has done.

So I figured I'd try "baleage in a day", as a one man band.  I unhooked the baler from the tractor and started mowing with the JD 630 (9 ft wide) at about 11 am, finished mowing then started raking about 3 pm, changed the tractor back to the baler and started baling the very wet bales about 5 pm. Transported the bales to another nearby field where I store wrapped hay then started wrapping about 7 pm, finishing inline wrapping under the lights.

I don't know what the moisture level of these bales is but it has to be in the 60-70% range. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the JD569 baler handled this wet baleage. I do have the "high moisture" kit in it as well as using the soft core setting. I took a couple pics except none of the mowing which is always the most tedious in this L-shaped, rough, hilly ground with woods along most of it. I knew the bales would be extremely heavy so reduced the monitor bale diameter setting to 60" for 5x5 bales.

This is probably the last forage harvest of the year as it's been raining all week since and I generally don't mow anything in the last 30 days before our typical early Oct first frost. I will graze lightly as long as possible but not mow. It is amazing what can be done by one person these days with a modest amount of equipment compared to what hay making was like years ago.

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