Wait or cut?

[LouNY]

If you want quality feed it needs to be mowed. If you want tonage you can wait.
I am amazed at people suggest poor quality hay for cow hay. Possibly for wintering brood cows over in mild climates.
Certainly not for milk or growing beef. If it doesn't get baled at the right moisture it will mold and be useless, rained on hay can be tedded and dried it will be bleached out but once dried it will make mulch hay.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

If you want quality feed it needs to be mowed. If you want tonage you can wait.
I am amazed at people suggest poor quality hay for cow hay. Possibly for wintering brood cows over in mild climates.
Certainly not for milk or growing beef. If it doesn't get baled at the right moisture it will mold and be useless, rained on hay can be tedded and dried it will be bleached out but once dried it will make mulch hay.

We live in different parts of the country and probably are dealing with different types of grass, I don't advocate feeding anything moldy hay, but down here hay that gets rained on can usually be salvaged and rolled or baled dry with zero mold and fed to cows during the winter with liquid protein as a supplement, my cow herd gets this hay sometimes until my winter rye/ oat fields are ready for grazing, just the way it is.

 

[Boss 302]

I'm in Virginia and based on our experience it's best to wait until around the middle or last part of May before the first cutting. We need rain in my part of Virginia so the grass can germinate and flourish as i would expect before making hay.

 

[Southernspeed]

Looks like you have some un sprayed pasture land there. Plenty of mix of grasses & some weeds.

Hay is so local/regional.
Everyone’s situation is different.
You’ll always have a uniformed clown telling you what you are doing is wrong. Most times they live 1,000 miles away in a different climate or serving different customer base.

@Hay Dude what do you use to spray hay fields with? Have you had customers who say their horses won't eat it because of lingering taste/odor of herbicide?
Could I spray now and it be ok for a second cut in a month or two?
I've used Graze-on before (which is now DuraCor(DuraCon?) but there are so many restrictions about not using manure for 18 months, not moving the hay off farm for 18 months, telling all buyers it's been sprayed etc etc. No hay supply guy has ever told me there hay has been sprayed, I've just assumed it has anyway. Is that true of all herbicides ?

 

[Hay Dude]

@Hay Dude what do you use to spray hay fields with? Have you had customers who say their horses won't eat it because of lingering taste/odor of herbicide?
Could I spray now and it be ok for a second cut in a month or two?
I've used Graze-on before (which is now DuraCor(DuraCon?) but there are so many restrictions about not using manure for 18 months, not moving the hay off farm for 18 months, telling all buyers it's been sprayed etc etc. No hay supply guy has ever told me their hay has been sprayed, I've just assumed it has anyway. Is that true of all herbicides ?

Many years ago, I had a few customers who didn’t like the smell/taste of hay that was preserved. They never commented about herbicide spray. I stopped spraying broadleaf herbicides about 6-7 years ago.
You just have to read the labels about restriction times. I used 2-4-D, cimmaron and clarity most of the time.
I now have a group of “organic” hay buyers I sell to and I’m much better off.

 

[Southernspeed]

Many years ago, I had a few customers who didn’t like the smell/taste of hay that was preserved. They never commented about herbicide spray. I stopped spraying broadleaf herbicides about 6-7 years ago.
You just have to read the labels about restriction times. I used 2-4-D, cimmaron and clarity most of the time.
I now have a group of “organic” hay buyers I sell to and I’m much better off.

I’d rather not spray but how do you control weeds? Or have you just got to a point where they’re eradicated?

 

[Tx Jim]

That was on my mind too. Long stemmy stuff I could maybe sell as cow hay ( we have horses) or at worst, brush hog it. But if it all spoils on the ground, I have no idea what to do with it. Bale it all and dump it in the woods?
This was one field yesterday.
View attachment 795700

Stem between your fingers & thumb resembles ryegrass which can be fed to horses. Hay is in short supply & high $$$$ where I live. If grass in your photo was in my field I promise I'd cut & bale it

 

[5030]

In the past I've had fields go to shitte...lol I just rake it all into the ditch and call it good or I'll run the shredder over it, depending on the quantity. Unlike Hay Dude, I don't bale mulch hay for mushrooms.

 

[Hay Dude]

I’d rather not spray but how do you control weeds? Or have you just got to a point where they’re eradicated?

I don’t control them much, really. Only thing I do is lime and pretty much, but not perfectly organic topsoil. The stronger your grass, the less weeds will grow.
Some guys spray their fields into oblivion. The weeds are gone, but so is a lot of other edible non-grass growth and you aren’t organic, for sure.
You trade that off for selling lower priced hay to people who don’t want spray, but your input prices are lower, too. Spraying adds time & cost to making hay.
I have no beef with anyone who wants to spray whatsoever. Your hay, your call.

 

[hosspuller]

@Hay Dude what do you use to spray hay fields with? Have you had customers who say their horses won't eat it because of lingering taste/odor of herbicide?
Could I spray now and it be ok for a second cut in a month or two?
I've used Graze-on before (which is now DuraCor(DuraCon?) but there are so many restrictions about not using manure for 18 months, not moving the hay off farm for 18 months, telling all buyers it's been sprayed etc etc. No hay supply guy has ever told me there hay has been sprayed, I've just assumed it has anyway. Is that true of all herbicides ?

I 've used Grazon HL on hay fields before. Worked well, but then I thought it through. I'm throwing out useful herbicide and have to warn customers too. (Hay treated with Grazon passes through the animal. Their manure will kill customers tomatoes) So I stopped using it on the hay fields and use it exclusively on pastures. The herbicide that is passed through the guts helps keep the pasture weeds down. Most broadleaf herbicides don't pass through manure.

*** Read up on the herbicide labels. ***