I posted a link to that same video on another site and offered my thoughts on it too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1og_YhNFvMY
My thoughts are: I really enjoyed watching this video. Most importantly it was nice to see an Ag products manufacturer totally confirm what I have already learned with some experimenting on my own piddle patch operation. Nice to see data and studies back up my own experiences though. I cut with a Hesston 1120 (9' traditional sickle mower with roller conditioners). I lay my swath out wide instead of windrowing it. Once that swatch goes limp and lies flat on the ground either same day or early next day , I rake it into a loose fluffy windrow with my rake. No one else that I know rakes this early. That said, I do not use just any hay rake because some rakes are known rope makers that do not promote hay drying. Instead, I use an old antique rake that makes very loose and fluffy windrows that the wind and air can circulate through easily. I can even adjust the loosness and fluffiness of my windrow. Once that loose fluffy windrow from my rake goes limp, I then flip the windrow again with the tail of the rake making yet another very loose and fluffy windrow that the wind and air circulates through. I get excellent drying this way without sun bleaching. Plus , I gain all the moving the swath benefits to drier ground that the fancy machine claims.
Except for the extra conditioning that their fancy machine does offer (and the ability to travel at 10 mph) , My primitive $90 antique rake method offers most all the other same benefits that their fancy machine does but I am admittingly limited to 5 to 5.5 mph or so travel speed with my antique steel wheeled rake which is plenty fast enough for the antique tractors I am using to operate anyhow (my back would not handle much more). Kinda cool....No way cool....
I think I am geeked now learning the some of the "why" behind how my method works. When I started implementing my current method it is was really more of a taking what I had available and in my mind improvising to make it work as best I could as it was all I had available to use. With all this new information that I am processing: I simply may not be improvising as much as I originally thought I was.
Started doing some of this additional reading in an effort to learn more about haying in Alaska and here I learned more details about why what I do (even though few others do it the way I do) works in Ohio. Best of all, I am simply not improvising as much as I thought I have been all along...simply did not fully understand till now (again very cool).
This post was edited by rankrank1 at 19:01:50 06/10/15 2 times.
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Today's Featured Article - Harvestin Hay: The Early Years (Part 2) - by Pat Browning. The summer of 1950 was the start of a new era in farming for our family. I was thirteen, and Kathy (my oldest sister) was seven. At this age, I believed tractor farming was the only way, hot stuff -- and given a chance I probably would have used the tractor, Dad's first, a 1936 Model "A" John Deere, to go bring in the cows! And I think Dad was ready for some automation too. And so it was that we acquired a good, used J. I. Case, wire tie hay baler. In addition to a person to drive th
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