Finally got 1st cutting Alfalfa up. It's been a cold, wet spring!!!!

hoffmtim · Jun 13, 2014

We're in one of those every 3 day rain event patterns up here in South Dakota. I took a gamble, dropped the hay Saturday and wouldn't you know it rained an inch Sunday night/Monday morning. We were dry Tuesday and Wednesday, but of course they were predicting potential heavy rain Wednesday night. By the grace of someone upstairs, we missed the Wednesday night rain so I got it turned Thursday afternoon, raked into final windrows this morning and hit it with the baler. Dried down good, a little discoloring on the top from the rain but otherwise really lucked out. Other than the tonnage being down due to the cool weather (26 rounds 1st cut this year vs 41 last year), the alfalfa looks real good.

hoffmtim · Jun 22, 2014

Here I was fretting my inch of rain on newly cut alfalfa. Since I baled it up, we've had a 3" rain, an 8.5" rain and massive flooding to the point interstate 29 was shut down with water over it for nearly 18 hours. The main E/W highway by me is closed with wash outs. I've counted 4 hay fields with cut alfalfa down just in my area, some of it drowning in newly formed shallow lakes! I guess I got real lucky getting mine up when I did. Had another 1.5" again last night after a 90 degree day. Second cutting shouldn't be wanting for moisture! What a start to summer!!!