CNY Farmer’s Making Hay In A Day – AG Matters

This may be some of the busiest of days for farmers, trying to harvest hay, plant other crops and keeping up with the daily chores.  Cornell Cooperative Extension says that has many changing the way they make hay.

More local growers are wide swathing hay to be harvested for silage. Wide swathing is setting your mower so that the width of the forage laid out behind the mower is no less than 80% of the mower width. This spreads out the hay in a thin veneer that dries very quickly trapping the quality of the hay (especially energy).

 

Farmers mow early in the morning, rake and chop later in the day and store it at the end of the day.  CCE's Jeff Miller says it's "50-60% moisture hay crop silage."  And the hay in a day process "traps more energy in the forage saving it for your livestock."

SOURCE: Cornell Cooperative Extension -