Damp Hay - How?

[chetlenox]

Hey all,

The rash of hay-related postings and resulting good advice has motivated me to throw out a recent issue I've had and see if any of ya'll can help me troubleshoot. As background, I've been doing this for only 1.5 years now (I'm on my 5th cutting), so while I'm learning rapidly, I'm relatively new to the whole process as compared to most folks in here.

Background: We cut, raked, and baled (squares) my 1st cutting of winter grasses (mostly Ryegrass and some clover and the odd wildflower or two) 4 weeks ago under very nice conditions. Lots of dry weather, sunshine, and wind. We cut, dried for 2 days, raked, dried for 2 more days, and baled. Before baling, the windrows seemed well-cured (based on my entire 3-cuttings experience). We sold a few hundred bales out of the field, and stacked the rest in the barn for sale.

Problem: After a week or two in the barn, I noticed some black mold spots on some of the bales at the top of the piles. There where in very specific spots underneath screws on a new metal roof extension that we have just added to the barn. Bummer. So I tossed a dozen or so bales that had these spots and made a mental note to hussle out to the barn and confirm that the roof is leaking at these few points next time it rains (which it hasn't since). Now the bigger problem. As I sold the hay down in the barn, I got to the bottom of the stack, and started discovering some damp and moldy bales! Mainly on the bottom stack, which was in contact with the wood of the hay loft. Never have had that problem before. Now I've tossed out 27+ bales and am confused as to how the bales could have been damp. It wasn't bad, just a few spots of dampness and some light mold spots, but I sell to picky customers and do NOT want to be selling bad hay. I'm also a little worried about the hay that I did sell from this cutting, although the feedback I've gotten from customers is that it is fine and the horses are eating it up. I've taken some guesses on the root cause for this, and would love some commentary on what ya'll think:

1) Leaky roof. Sure, a little leak in the roof that generated some spots on the top bales I understand. But the moisture penetrating through 5-6 layers of square bales and impacting the bottom of the stack? Seems far-fetched, especially since we only got a few inches of rain during the few weeks the bales were in the barn, so these would be just a few drip-drip-drip sorta leaks (although I haven't confirmed that) The data that supports this is that bales on the non-leaky side of the barn did seem drier, and I didn't have to throw any of those away. Could a few small leaks cause an entire stack of hay to get damp, all the way to the bottom?

2) Tight bales. I cut and rake my field, but I have a friend that does the baling. He had his baler tension set very tight this time, so much so that my 65+ lb bales were slipping off the hay elevator much more than usual due to weight. Could bumping up the hay bale tension make a significant difference in how dry the bales have to be to safe? Could my definition of "dry and ready to bale" be different with a "looser" 45-55 lb bale versus a "tighter" 65+ lb bale?

3) Left bales in field for one night. In the past, I've typically baled and stacked in the barn on the same day. This time, since the weather was nice and there was no risk of rain, we baled in the afternoon and then picked up and stacked in the barn the next morning. There was very little dew, since the weather was cool (~55 ish) and windy. Could the bales have soaked up water from the ground during that time, enough to cause them to be too damp when they went into the barn?

I'll attach some pictures, although I'm not sure they are all that helpful... mainly just so you can visualize my bales going to waste because I don't know what I'm doing.

Thanks in advance for any advice ya'll have.

Chet

 

[WTA]

I'd fix the roof first off then look for the other problem at the next baling. It sounds like maybe some of it just wasn't dry enough. I know I have spots in my field that grow a lot thicker than the rest and those rows always seem to take longer to dry.

 

[Mickey_Fx]

Chet, one thing you could do is purchase a moisture meter to insure the moisture content. Back when I was haying, I had a sprayer to apply a liquid product called Hay-Saver. It prevented spoilage if weather conditions didn't permit the hay to get as dried out as one would liked. Worked like a champ.

The last item is something that may be coming into play and not much you can do about it. One season after bailing and stacking a 1st cutting crop I noted some moisture and heating in the stack. All the moisture/mold was at the seams in the stack, i.e. end of bails. Had to break the whole stack and found this problem throughout the stack. Went over to a customer and checked his stack and found the same problem. Called the extension agent and he came out and inspected. The report back was hay was bailed OK but was having a freak season where hay stacks were sucking in moisture which accounted for the isolated moisture and mold and there were sim calls coming in from others in the area. Had to leave the stacks broken up and had to sell at greatly reduced price.

 

[pengs68]

I would use a tedder the day after you mow it and try to pick up the bales the same day you make them and also stack them on edge.

 

[Bird]

I can't claim to know a lot about haying baling, and all my experience was with the big round bales, but the folks I knew in the business would not use a tedder unless it was absolutely necessary; i.e., something such as rain after it was cut and before it was baled. They said that would know too much of the good foliage off the stems. And we cut the hay and let it dry before baling, but never raked it until the same day we were baling it. In fact, with two of us, one would be raking while the other baled.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

You were baling at what would normally be considered very early in the season here. My first question would be related to leaving the bales on the ground overnight. How dry is/was the ground? Marginally wet hayfields are not condusive to hay drying, nor is it "ideal conditions" to be leaving hay on the ground for long.

Also, although it seems that EVERYONE does it nowdays, I never liked storing hay in metal clad buildings. One word...... Condensation.

 

[zzvyb6]

Simply put, the hay was not dry enough to bale. I'll bet moisture was above 20% instead of 15%. A moisture meter is absolutely required this early in the season.

You can tell when the hay is ready when it's brittle and makes a special sound when going thru the baler pickup. (a sizzling sound). Find a cow farmer real quick. Break some open outside the barn and find out how hot they are. You could be lookin' at a fire hazard in the making.

 

[chetlenox]

Thanks guys, this is exactly what I was looking for.

WTA - Yep, the roof fix is the highest priority right now. We are getting some rain shortly, so I'm on it.

Mickey-FX - I have seen the moisture meters before, but I always wondered if they were all that effective. If you have used them before and they worked, it might be worth looking into. I don't have a sprayer yet that I could use chemical with, but I've been looking for another excuse (besides putting down herbicides) to get one. Now might be the time, I guess. It's funny that you mentioned your story on the season where lots of folks had trouble with moisture. It has been pretty humid the last few weeks, more humid than normal I would say. I imagine that could have been a contributing factor.

Farmwithjunk - We had some rain ~4 days before we cut, so the ground was damp but not wet. No standing water, but I'm sure you could have found spots where the ground would be wet to the touch. I'm thinking that just avoiding the "sitting all night on the ground" might have to become a policy. It's kindof a shame though, since it was pretty nice to bale one day and pickup the next. If it means damp bales, it's probably time to stop though.

zzvyb6 - I agree with you that something happened to result in wet bales, but the hay itself sure seemed dry enough to bale upon inspection out in the field. It was definitely as dry or drier than one or two of our cuttings last year, and we didn't have any trouble with those. That's why I was approaching this as a "storage and handling" problem rather than a "when I cut" problem. You could be right though, maybe I just missed it early in the season and cut too early. Yours is the second suggestion for a moisture meter, it's probably time to take a serious look at that. I've seen them in "probe" form, I assume you just go out and stab that probe into various spots in the windrow and see what it says? Oh yeah, and we broke apart a number of the damp bales and they aren't too bad in side. In fact, most of the mold spots seems to be on the surface, the interior of the bales is actually a little drier. I've found a local cattle farmer to take the remaining 30-some bales off my hands. For free of course. ~$140 down the drain...

Thanks again guys,

Chet.

 

[RickB]

You may not have a roof problem. The moisture in the hay could have evaporated out, condensed on the underside to the roof, and dripped off the nails protruding from the purlins. ALL the moisture could have come from the too-wet hay.

 

[slowzuki]

I agree with Rick, condensation is common in steel buildings without adequate ventilation.

Also, leaving hay on the ground over night is not a great idea. The dew isn't a problem but if you checked the humidity below those bales you'd find they are sucking it up from the ground. Leave a sheet of plastic on the ground overnight and you'll see dry ground go damp. The bale sucks all that up inside.

Last, if you hay is nice and dry, a little extra moisture exposure won't hurt but if you are close to the limit, any extra moisture can break the camels back. Tight bales don't dry as well after baling, clover and legumes hold moisture like crazy and can be the bane of trying to get dry hay in most areas.

 

[chetlenox]

Man, I'm pretty sure ya'll are psychic. These responses are great.

RickB - Sure enough, we got about a 3/4 inch rainstorm yesterday about an hour or two before I got home from work. So I hurried home, headed out to the barn... not a wet spot on the floor of the loft. No joke. Now sure, I wasn't actually in the barn when it was raining, so a very small puddle could have dried up before I got there, but it would have had to have been small. You may be exactly right, I might not actually have a roof leak.

Oh yeah, and the barn is actually wood with a metal roof, so it's not exactly a steel building. But your model for condensation that drips off the screws still works. The funny part is, now that I think about it, the addition we put onto the barn a month or so ago (the one that I thought caused the roof to leak) would actually decrease the airflow to the loft, since it no longer has open eaves along one side (it's now a closed-in parking area for our camper and farm equipment). That is something I had never thought of. On top of that, the other side of the barn that was un-modified had the dryer hay. I thought it was because we hadn't messed with the roof there (so it wasn't leaking), but maybe it's more that it still has open eaves with better ventilation. I wonder if some fans are now going to be required for the few weeks after we bale to push the air around a bit.

Slowzuki - I'll bet you are right, I'll bet I did get quite a bit of moisture out of the ground by leaving them out overnight. Like I mentioned before, these bales were tighter than I usually do. In fact, they were so heavy that they were falling off the hay elevator "spikes" much more often as we were hoisting them up into the loft. You were also dead-on with the legume comment, I do have a pretty good mix of clover in my first cutting. I've definitely noticed that it is the last thing to dry out in the field.

Well guys, I think ya'll have nailed it. I'm pretty sure I started baling at the same hay moisture content as last year, but my baling and storage changed by a little bit in a couple of different ways, all in the direction of encouraging bale dampness:

1) Tighter bales (65 lbs instead of the usual 45-50 lbs)
2) My barn modifications decreased airflow to half the stacks
3) I left the bales on the field overnight, sucking up water before storage

This is great, I feel much better now that I've got some adjustments to my workflow that I can use. The funny part is that I was always so focused on the "when is it dry enough to bale?" question that I never really paid close attention to what happens afterwords.

Thanks again guys!

Chet.

 

[Mickey_Fx]

Chet, my haying experience goes back 30 yrs and times have changed. The moisture meter I had, had a probe on it to stick into the bale. It did a decent job but I'd prefer a meter that worked on the unbaled hay. I did try and use the meter on unbaled hay. Grabed a handful of hay, squeezed as tight as I could and then stuck the probe in to the hay. It would report on moisture but always reported hay was dryer than same hay in the bale.

I still have the sprayer set-up for the Hay-Saver out in the barn but have no idea if they are still in business. System consited of a tank, looked like a beer keg that was mounted to the bailer, a small electric pump and hose and nozzle mounted so liquid was continually sprayed on to the hay at the baler throat. Only took about gal per ton.

Remember the first time I use this set-up. Weather turned cool and damp and major rain storm on the way. Turned the hay a couple times in the AM untill something had to be done in order to get crop off the field. Got it bailed and off the field that day and rain came in for a soild week. Later in the season my customer told me his boy entered a bale in the county fair and come home with a blue ribbon. Didn't have to use the hay-saver very often but it always did the job when needed.

 

[chetlenox]

Mickey_Fx,

You are right, the real value in a moisture probe would be to be able to measure while the hay is in the field. Seems like if the only time it gets accurate measurements is in the bale, all you've done is confirmed that you baled too early. I guess you could drive out and do one bale, then test. That would probably work.

The hay-saver sounds like a pretty good deal. I got one of my cuttings rained on last year, and it isn't any fun. And I'm sure it's worse (the potentially for rainy weather when you want to harvest) up in your neck of the woods.

Chet.

 

[slowzuki]

That haysaver is likely proprionic acid (spelling?) a few guys have them on balers here. The horse people don't like it if they know it was spraying. The horses don't seem to care other than I'm told it makes the hay taste a salty? How someone figures that out I don't know.

 

[mark.r]

The horses don't seem to care other than I'm told it makes the hay taste a salty? How someone figures that out I don't know.

We taste it!

Haysaver or similar set up . . .

 

[chetlenox]

FYI: I just found a nice summary on the use of Propionic Acid for baling wetter-than-optimal hay, published by the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture:

Preventing Mouldy Hay Using Propionic Acid

Chet.

 

[charlz]

I've been pretty surprised at how wet the bottom of a bale will from sitting in the field overnight. If you have to leave them out overnight it might help wait until the next afternoon or evening to pick them up. I have only a couple acres in hay so I walk around and kick them over if I need to get them off the field right away (only get irrigation water every 8 days).

 

[SPYDERLK]

I've been pretty surprised at how wet the bottom of a bale will from sitting in the field overnight. If you have to leave them out overnight it might help wait until the next afternoon or evening to pick them up. I have only a couple acres in hay so I walk around and kick them over if I need to get them off the field right away (only get irrigation water every 8 days).

Before picking up hay that sits overnite, turn bales after the dew burns off then wait at least an hr before pickup. I do this from a lawn tractor or golf cart without having to get off.

Regarding your heavy, hard bales - Hay that is damp will pack surprisingly hard in a baler because the bales resist slipping thru the chute more than when dry. I find it necessary to check the just formed bales frequently when starting a session and make adjustments accordingly when the hay is the least damp.
larry

 

[Mickey_Fx]

FYI: I just found a nice summary on the use of Propionic Acid for baling wetter-than-optimal hay, published by the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture:

Preventing Mouldy Hay Using Propionic Acid

Chet.

Propionic acid was the principle ingredient in the HaySaver spray.

 

[chetlenox]

Larry, that makes good sense to give bales a "turn and dry" before picking up if you have to leave them out overnight. I think I've learned my lesson though, and am going to do my best to always bale and stack on the same day.

We cut yesterday and are raking today, we are aiming to bale Tuesday. The weather is great, hot and windy, so I think we are going to be fine on the conditions going into the bale. I've already got my help lined up for Tuesday noon (we'll start baling once the dew burns off) so we won't be leaving bales out overnight. I'm also going to ask my baler to run a little looser than last time (45-50 lbs/bale) and will stack in the better ventilated side of the barn. I'm going to work on the poorly ventilated side after this cutting to see if I can get some better airflow now that I've messed it up with the extension built off the side. I was kicking around the idea of installing an "attic" type fan to improve things (when I've got hay drying), and ran across some really serious barn ventilation systems on the net. I imagine this guy doesn't have any trouble moving air through his barn!

Anyway, I'm working to do a better job this time. This will be my 5th cutting, and I'm still learning a bunch.

Thanks guys,

Chet.