The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

LHF2019 · Thursday at 12:53 PM

Rustyiron said:
it still has to dry down a little (I don't remember the %) and that's even giving him a little trouble!

Anywhere from 25-60% moisture. I try for 50% and just under. Depending on your area. for 1st cutting mow one day bale the next. Crops like oats, rye, sorghum sudan, etc might leave it for a couple days. Heavy clover almost never gets dry enough. That is a tough crop. Fine line between getting it to a decent moisture level and keeping the leaves on. That's a good one to rake together very early morning with dew on then bale.

deserteagle71 · Thursday at 2:52 PM

LHF2019 said:
Anywhere from 25-60% moisture. I try for 50% and just under. Depending on your area. for 1st cutting mow one day bale the next. Crops like oats, rye, sorghum sudan, etc might leave it for a couple days. Heavy clover almost never gets dry enough. That is a tough crop. Fine line between getting it to a decent moisture level and keeping the leaves on. That's a good one to rake together very early morning with dew on then bale.

Here in the desert most baling is done starting about 2 in the morning (middle of the night!) when the humidity is highest. Baling during the day when humidity is in the single digits just results in "shattered" hay.

From the National Weather Service - typical summertime conditions:

dodge man · Thursday at 4:23 PM

deserteagle71 said:
Here in the desert most baling is done starting about 2 in the morning (middle of the night!) when the humidity is highest. Baling during the day when humidity is in the single digits just results in "shattered" hay.

From the National Weather Service - typical summertime conditions:

View attachment 3638436

That dew point is insane, ours is in the mid 60’s today and yesterday was around 70.

Hay Dude · Thursday at 8:20 PM

Crazy day today. I was able to get some more hay down. Beatiful sunny morning. Chance of T-storms later

I got one field baled and got nailed with downpours on my way back to the shop.

We got nailed square upside the head with a red cell.

My buddy called me and told me a tree fell on or near my hay mowing tractor.
I thought the worst. Got there and luckily, the tree fell the other way onto the road. My tractor was spared. We survived to fight again tomorrow.