I have very irregular fields and it makes for frustrating haying. Over the 37 years I have been here I have tried several options, going through 2 small wheel rakes and half a dozen parallel bar JD and NH rakes, both with a tricycle wheel and drawbar mounted with no third wheel.
For MY operation:
1. The 4 basket wheel rake is a joke. Only good thing I can say is that you can lift it up to get around an irregular corner without disturbing your wind row and put it back down. It isn't worth a hoot on stemmy hays like sorghum-sudans......fingers just bend back. On light material like bermuda/rye, if the wind is blowing it blows the product up against the wheels, causing it to stick to them and just makes one big mess. I have NO experience with V rakes and from Jim's inputs over the years, seems they work well for what he does.
2. The tricycle parallel bar, tricycle rakers (JD 600 series for a number), have proven to be the rake of choice for me. Drawbacks are no lifting (unless I get off the tractor and manually crank the lift) when you work an irregular corner, and rolling of the product if you make too many passes on the same wind row.
After some 20 years of a converted urbanite farming at farming, I heard about a tedder and for cutting and harvesting irregular fields. This implement has become an indispensable part of my operation, using the 2 basket currently. Sometimes in addition to tedding the cuttings during the curing process to eliminate "irregular corner lumping" and a more even curing, I will come back and whack a ww to scattter it and re-rake. The rolling of the material helps it to stay in place when the wind is blowing but hampers curing and makes for uneven bales when rolling, so it's an undesirable aspect.
Hope this gives you another point of view on the subject.
