Almost done with hay

[bandit80]

Baled the last 20 acres of brome last night, yielding 62 bales. Brother doubled up 12' windrows with the rake, and we got it done in 2 hours. It won't be very high quality as late as it is, but it has been one of those years. All that is left now is two cuttings of alfalfa, 20 acres of gamagrass, and 35 acres of Pearl Millett that will probably be cut twice as well. Can finally see the finish line.

How is everyone else doing getting the hay baled, if you had any to bale?

 

[TexasBred]

Bandit...there is nothing around here to bail unless unless the farmers decide to bail maize stalks and corn stalks. :cry2:

 

[1982vett]

...The neighbor is growing pearl millett and soy beans together. I have never seen that done before. Said he is going to bale it all for hay??????? ...

I was going to try cowpeas and pearl millet this past May behind the oats/ryegrass.  Bought some soybeans also because they didn't have enought cowpeas.  I was thinking more on the lines of grazing and soil improvement than baling for hay.   Got the seed bed prepaired but never got the moisture to plant.  Still have the seed so we will try again next year.

 

[dun]

I planted hay beans and german millet together, both look to be doing great.

 

[dyates]

I dont bale my hay. It is cheaper to buy it. I bought 300 bales. I think 40 of them were wheat the rest were fescue, orchard grass, timothy, and clover. The neighbor is growing pearl millett and soy beans together. I have never seen that done before. Said he is going to bale it all for hay??????? My sudex would do good on some hay but I dont have a baler so Im just going to turn them on it at the end of the week.

Yeah, it can be done....once every 5 years or so in this part of the world. The millet itself would have to lay for five days to cure; add a couple more for the beans and it would have to lay at least a week. Most years, it would get at least an inch of rain on it before you could roll it.

As for being almost finished, I wish. Finished with the easy part, rolling. We've rolled approximately 225 acres so far (mixed grass, wheat, alfalfa...you name it) and made over 600 5x5's. Baled a couple thousand small squares of alfalfa and alfalfa/grass mix. It's all squares from here on out except a little patch of millet I'm experimenting with. Be happy to sell y'all some rolls if you can afford the fuel to haul them home. We'll be housing tobacco in a month :cry2:

 

[bigbull338]

we are done baling for the year.cut 60acs an it made 183 bales.had about 20 bales last years hay left.didnt bale 25acs.sold 40acs of standing hay.it made 125 bales.lost about 10 bales when that sucker set the meadow on fire.all told this year made an sold hay is about 330 rolls.an thats just cutting once.

 

[Steve Wilson]

We finished haying about 3 weeks ago. Planted haybeans and german millet in one pasture and cow peas in another. Both for haying in mid September, at 80 days old. Tried some of those whopper 6' tall Derry beans in the middle, with Cow Pro forage beans on the outside 4 passes with the 10 foot no till drill. Beans are doing splendid but the millet has rust from all of the rain. The beans are too tall to walk through anymore. You notice the rust walking around the edges, worse in the shade. Don't know what it is like out in the middle or how bad it will hurt the millet. Where the rust is bad....it is pretty bad. Will it come out of it and make much? Don't know. It's about 1 1/2 foot tall now, as are the beans.

Sort of unhappy with the cow peas. They came up spotty for some reason, even though they are supposed to do better in poor soils. Where I have peas, there are lots of them, other places I'm pretty much looking at bare dirt. At first, something was biting them off at ground level. Leaving dead plants lying on the ground. Like cut worms would do. Then something started biting the leaves off, letting them laying in the ground. The deer were tearing up the beans, leaving short bean stumps. But they have started sprouting out again last week from the remaining leaf nodes, to my amazement. No blooms yet, on either the beans or cow peas.

 

[1982vett]

I bought the Iron and Clay cowpeas. Had planted some in some pasture renovations in early May. They were doing pretty good untill I decided to experiment some more and got another plot ready to plant. I noticed the same problems with something cutting them off and chewing the leaves. Suspected aphids or black flies but never saw anything. They are about 40% dead now (heavy clay) and never bloomed, 20% of them were doing pretty well (good topsoil) and the rest are dying a slow death (mix of the two). I don't remember which variety of soybeans, took the last 4 bags they had because they didn't have enough cowpeas to fill the order either. I'll drill some clover, ryegrass, and oats on it this fall if it will ever rain.

 

[Jogeephus]

I'm not done with it but its about done with me after today's epic hay baling adventure. Should have stayed in bed. I got about two more months of it if the worms don't tote us off.

 

[LRWright]

We've had more rain than usual in WV so we still have to do our second cutting. We normally do it in mid-August but it will likely be late August/early September this year. The hay we've cut so far has been pretty decent...I guess because all the rain helped it grow, but we are looking forward to the second cutting and being done with hay for this year.

 

[flaboy]

If I could bale water I would make a killing at the price they are getting for bottled water. I am still estimating maybe a Halloween hay baling party.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Baled the last 20 acres of brome last night, yielding 62 bales. Brother doubled up 12' windrows with the rake, and we got it done in 2 hours. It won't be very high quality as late as it is, but it has been one of those years. All that is left now is two cuttings of alfalfa, 20 acres of gamagrass, and 35 acres of Pearl Millett that will probably be cut twice as well. Can finally see the finish line.

How is everyone else doing getting the hay baled, if you had any to bale?

If you get bored and enjoy cool Texas weather I have about 45 acres to lay down next week.
Be sure to bring your jacket this cool snap is bound to break sooner or later.

 

[bandit80]

Baled the last 20 acres of brome last night, yielding 62 bales. Brother doubled up 12' windrows with the rake, and we got it done in 2 hours. It won't be very high quality as late as it is, but it has been one of those years. All that is left now is two cuttings of alfalfa, 20 acres of gamagrass, and 35 acres of Pearl Millett that will probably be cut twice as well. Can finally see the finish line.

How is everyone else doing getting the hay baled, if you had any to bale?

If you get bored and enjoy cool Texas weather I have about 45 acres to lay down next week.
Be sure to bring your jacket this cool snap is bound to break sooner or later.

I'm generally not good at detecting sarcasm, but I think I am picking up on some from you. It really is unseasonably cool here, highs in the 70's for the rest of this week, the weekend, and the first part of next week with rain about every day. Guess the rest of our hay will just have to wait a few days. I reckon I can find enough things to do to keep me busy, or I would be there just as soon as I rearrange my sock drawer again. :lol2:

 

[Caustic Burno]

It has cooled down to a 100 here, last week was hot before this cool front blew through.

 

[Jogeephus]

Cooled down here too - a little. But I just got 4 inches of rain! :banana: :banana: :banana: My grass must have been on critical stanby cause it has jumped!! Looks like hay season might go into over time. :banana:

 

[Wewild]

It is a bit different than last year. We did purty good on hay and the creek ain't dried up yet.

Maybe it's just a relative thing that goes back to the creek only going dry twice as I have been told (once being last year).

Buying 120 bales sure hurt. May have to buy about that half again.

 

[Jogeephus]

It is a bit different than last year. We did purty good on hay and the creek ain't dried up yet.

Maybe it's just a relative thing that goes back to the creek only going dry twice as I have been told (once being last year).

Buying 120 bales sure hurt. May have to buy about that half again.

Was the other time 1954?

 

[Wewild]

It is a bit different than last year. We did purty good on hay and the creek ain't dried up yet.

Maybe it's just a relative thing that goes back to the creek only going dry twice as I have been told (once being last year).

Buying 120 bales sure hurt. May have to buy about that half again.

Was the other time 1954?

Don't know. I don't recall the year. I've only seen it once. I have seen the hundred year flood plain flood twice in the last ten years.

I got to believe we will come out of this drought next year.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Wehad two of them 100 year floods in a month this spring. We have baled almost 1000 rolls, got about 100 acres to cut agin.

 

[Wewild]

Wehad two of them 100 year floods in a month this spring. We have baled almost 1000 rolls, got about 100 acres to cut agin.

I'm happy for you I reckon as ours cost a bit of money but not as much as our lack of hay production. Hope yours was the same.

It seems what goes around comes around.