Speed when cutting hay

jacobsdaddy06 · May 20, 2012

Ok the poll for mowing w/o the bucket was such a hit, let's try another one. How fast should you cut hay with a sickle mower? I have a shuttle shift with 4 range and 4 gears. Thanks

Creamer · May 20, 2012

Need a little more clarification here. What are you cutting? Alfalfa, tall tame grass like brome or orchard grass, short native grass, oat hay - there will be a lot of variation in your answers depending on the assumption going in. I have cut oats at 10 mph but there is no way I could cut native short grass prairie hay at that speed.

jacobsdaddy06 · May 20, 2012

sorry about that its just plain old pasture grass

whodat526 · May 20, 2012

jacobsdaddy06 said:
sorry about that its just plain old pasture grass

i cut with a 8ft nh disc mower or a kuhn 9ft disc mower with a ford 5900 and a massey 283 and i run in 5th or 6th gear unless the fear is ruff

but most people say you can run as fast as you can stay on the tractor and not bale up the hay in the cutter

and if you cut hay after the dew is off the ground with a sicle mower you can run faster but with a disc mower it cuts easyier with the dew on the ground

huskerhayman · May 20, 2012

I cut native prairie hay in 4th gear on a IH 684 today. Tractor Data tells me that is 4.9 mph. It was going good till I found an electric fence post. That slowed me down for a while, but I still knocked down 40 ac. The grass is short and thin this year as it was a very dry spring. Normally in the thick spots I would have to shift down a gear but they were few and far between.

charleyfarmall · May 21, 2012

I usually run mine 4.5-5 mph. I have cut at 6mph just fine depending on the grass but usually it's the rough ride that slows me down.

Creamer · May 22, 2012

As a kid I cut a lot of native prairie hay with a nine foot sickle bar with a Super M-TA in second gear - about 4 mph. Once in a while we went in 3rd (5 mph) but it was a little fast until we overspeeded the mower. Cutting Alfalfa or brome or orchard grass, we often went higher speed - up in the 6-7 mph range.
The 3rd gear on the Oliver Super 88 seemed just about right for Prairie hay (4.3 mph).