haybine mowing question

[Anonymous-0]

Iam going to mow this morning with my NH 477 (7' mo-co). I have used it once last year, so this is the 2nd year. Last year I made windrows. I read in the manual about the setting for a full width swath instead. I have field areas of thick heavy clover, and I would like to dry as fast as possible to bale (maybe tomorrow night? weather here looks good).

Am I wise to windrow right away or swath and let it be flat and rake to windrows later in a heavy crop. 4Wheel rake and 273 square baler.

 

[Anonymous-0]

For what you are doing, always drop the hay in a swath as wide as possible. This will minimize your drying time by exposing as much of the hay to the sun and wind as possible.

 

[Anonymous-0]

If you have a tedder windrow then ted two windrows at a pass. If no tedder swath then rake when it's dry on top. The problem with not tedding is that the swaths will get driven on and won't dry as well. The tedder lifts it off the ground and leaves it on top of the stubble. If you get a stretch of dry weather, no problem.

 

[Walt Davies]

We just put about 25 acres of heavy grass on the ground I spread it out as much as possible with the 9 ft. MacDon Mo-Co it helped a lot in getting it dry in just a couple of days. We were baling last night at 10 to 12 percent moisture. Nice tight green bales.
Walt

 

[old]

On both my MOCO I have the windrow part off of them so that the hay will dry faster. I don't have a tedder so I di it that way and have been now for 5 or 6 years. Works real good that way. By the way I use a NH460 most of the time so its a lot like yours other then being a 9 foot cut
Hobby farm

 

[Anonymous-0]

Gentlemen, thank you very much. I will go and lower the baffle right now. Heavy dew last night! It will be a while before I can cut it seems.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Our 13' disc conditioner will leave up to a 10' wide swath which does speed drying over a narrow windrow but it comes at the cost of bleaching more of the hay. For your own use bleaching isn't a big deal but on the alfalfa we are selling I'm going to lay down a narrow swath even if it takes half a day longer to dry. I will also make adjustments depending on the weather forcast, with forcast of sunny weather and no wind I'll lay it out wide but if I can get a good breeze I'll lay out a narrow but tall windrow so the wind can blow through it. I know they say that direct sunlight does most of the drying but I think a 10-15 mph breeze and clouds will dry hay almost as fast and leave me with better quality hay.