Haybine or Discbine?

[disco]

Well I have decided to take back our land from our long time renter and raise our own hay. Don't know a thing about it. With everyone's help from TBN. I have bought a JD 4310 a few years ago and recently a JD 4020 tractor, NH 256 rake, JD 336 baler, and a MM P3-6 drill.
What I want to buy next would be some type of mower. We will be raising grass hay. What would be the best type of mower to use? There will be 35 acres.

Thanks Paul

 

[flusher]

Well I have decided to take back our land from our long time renter and raise our own hay. Don't know a thing about it. With everyone's help from TBN. I have bought a JD 4310 a few years ago and recently a JD 4020 tractor, NH 256 rake, JD 336 baler, and a MM P3-6 drill.
What I want to buy next would be some type of mower. We will be raising grass hay. What would be the best type of mower to use? There will be 35 acres.

Thanks Paul

Don't know about haybines or discbines. I use straight sicklebar mowers, an old Allis Chalmers 80T and a mid-mount sicklebar on my 1951 Farmall Super A (both have 6-ft cutter bars).

I also have a MM P3-6 drill on steel wheels.

Bought 2 of these from a neighbor last year for $275. Restored one to use on my 6-acres of hayfield; the other is a spares unit/lawn ornament. Haven't had a chance to use the drill yet. Hope to do some planting next Sep/Oct.

We don't need mower-conditioners around here because of the low humidity and skimpy annual rainfall (19"/yr normal). But I am interested in getting an 7-8ft disc mower to use with my 2008 Mahindra 5525 (54 hp engine, 45 hp pto) and retire the sicklebars. So far I haven't made the change. I have some rocky patches in my hayfield and I'm concerned about tossing stones around when the disc mower bottoms out on the ground.

 

[jimg]

The discbine will get you thru the field a bit faster and for sure you wont be jumping off to unplug it. However, unless your fields are really smooth theres a limit to how fast youll want to go. Youll need to make sure your tractor can actually drive the discbine...they require a fair amt of hp. As well discbines purchase price is going to be somewhat more than a comparably sized haybine +, depending on yr and problem, really expensive to repair. On the haybine side they wont be as fast thru the field and have the tendency to plug in heavy wet grass. However, they dont require nearly the hp and for the larger sizes arent terribly expensive to purchase. I think theres a bit more ongoing maint w/ them though. I own a 7' haybine (MF725) and it took me roughly 10hrs to mow my 19ac of hay ground. Most of the time was spent on the tractor but I did wind up clearing several plugs. In your case w/ 35ac youd certain want to size the haybine bigger. If you have to drive over roads keep that in mind when sizing. For a rough idea on used prices take a look at whats at tractorhouse.com

 

[deereguy]

Your JD 4020 w/ 80-90 HP should handle a New Holland 9' haybine w/o any trouble. I would cut 1/2 of the field, ted (if you have one), rake, bale that before starting on the 2nd half of the field. If you have mechanical troubles (and starting out you might) your not under pressure to bale up the entire field. I cut 22 acres with a 14' windrower and it takes around 6 hours, we cut 1/2 for the 1st cutting, bale that (with a 4 day dry window) then wait and cut the 2nd 1/2 when we see a 4 day dry window. 2nd/3rd cutting- we generally knock down everything due to a lack of volume of hay. Your JD 4310 will make an excellent tedding/raking tractor. I don't have any knowledge of what size of a discbine- your 4020 should handle one.

Good Luck!!

 

[matt21]

I had a 12' discbine i bought at an auction last june for $3,500. It came with a box full of spare parts, a new set of blades, some bearings, and a few new skid shoes. I used it to cut 35 acres and it took me 4 1/2 hours. It's recommended tractor size is 100 hp but 70 PTO hp pulled it without a problem.

 

[slowzuki]

Hmm, how much moisture in your area? What do other people use there? 35 acres isn't that much, you could use any of the hay mowers available.

Up here it is wet, so the mower conditioner is king. If you have money its a disc mower conditioner. If not its a sickle bar mower conditioner.

There are a few old timers with sickle bar mowers who fart around on a couple of acres. I'm curious to try a straight disc mower, since I have to ted already.

 

[gf5205]

. I'm curious to try a straight disc mower, since I have to ted already.

I think you'll regret not conditioning. We just switched to an impeller conditioner on a disc mo co from rubber rolls on a sickle mo co. That change plus a rotary rake has cut drying Mid June cut hay here in SW Maine form 4 days to three. It also makes a big difference with second crop. We also tedd.
Greg

 

[slowzuki]

Greg,
Right now using a sickle bar mo-co NH 489, I can usually get hay up in 3 days, somedays 2. I mow in the morning, first tedding in the afternoon, next tedding before lunch the next day, and if it was windy, I can rake at 4 pm and start baling right away. Normally though I have to ted the third time before raking.

One of the reasons for all the tedding is vetch and bedstraw that is taking over some of our fields. Its worse than legumes for dry down, at least the animals like it.

I find my drying slows to a crawl once I rake into a windrow. I've been trying to think of a good way to rig my rake onto the front of the tractor to rake right into the baler pickup as a I go in order to get more baling time.

 

[gf5205]

We have a lot of bedstraw too. Last year May was dry and the Timothy was short so all you'd see were the yellow bedstraw blossoms. We went with a Kuhn rotary rake a couple of years ago and it makes big fluffy windrows that dry great. It's especially helpful when the ground is wet since we can rake earlier with no threat of making rope - a problem with our old side delivery rake - and get the hay up off of the damp ground.
Greg

 

[kenstrac]

I used an old 1010 Heston hydro swing M/C with my Same 60 hp tractor ,For the rake I had a Kuhn tedder/ rake combo but that was a pain to change so I just used it to tedder and also a 11ft Kuhn rake that was real good in vetch
and a Heston 4600 in line baler