Mystang's Homesteading Circus

[frustratedearthmother]

cool!

 

[Baymule]

Boot stage is just as the seedhead starts to form. Look it up and read for more detail.

 

[mystang89]

I don't know why but it won't let me load the actual picture so you'll have to DL it to see but these two pics are of my property. The first one is the original, no markings on it and the second shows the way in which I tried to cut the hay today. As you see in the picture I started out in a counter clockwise motion so the tractor tires wouldn't be running over the grass I was about to mow. This placed the haybine on the inside. Each time I went around the pasture, the tires on the tractor would run with the cut hay neatly in between them. I started running into problems though as the more hay I cut, the sharper the turns became and the more grass my tires would run over and along with my tires the haybine as well would then run over the grass that was in a neat row.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't want to be running over the grass with the tractor because then I compact it down and make it take longer to dry. I don't want to be running over the rows of hay with the haybine because it:

1.) messes up the rows.
2.) cuts the grass a second time which then makes it smaller
3.) ....I'm sure there's a third I just can't think of it. This is much nicer with a 3 though so feel free to insert a reason of your own

Anyway, as I say, the more I go around the pasture, the sharper the turns. I wanted to go up and down the pasture as you see stripes in the grass on some persons lawn but if I did that then the tires of the tractor would be running over the grass that I haven't cut yet. Everyone YouTube video I watched shows the tractor running on the outside so it didn't run over the uncut hay.

How is it you all would run this show? The area is about....3 ish acres so that part isn't much but I'd like to get as much hay outta it as possible plus I'd just like to learn better ways of cutting hay. I know there are other people around here, (my neighbor) who wouldn't mind me cutting their hay so I'd like as much info as possible so I don't butcher their pasture and make it as easy as possible on me.

In the link below you'll see how I turned some of those corners. The haybine literally pivots the spot and keeps doing its thing while the tractor just a great job of running over every row of cut hay I could possibly find in a 5 mile radius.

 

[mystang89]

One word.
Boot

Boot stage is just as the seedhead starts to form. Look it up and read for more detail.

Thank you. Just looks it up. I'd say I was a bit past the boot stage. When you have different types of grasses in the pasture and they have different stages of seeding, do you just go with the grass which is more predominant?

 

[farmerjan]

Okay, first off. About the tractor tire. Most holes are not "pluggable" and the plugs will not last due to the type of tread on a tractor tire. The plug would not be between the treads as tractor tires don't have those type treads. You can have a tire place, usually have to find one that has the equipment to work on big tractor tires though, put a boot inside the tire where there is a hole. It is like a "patch" that goes inside, gets "glued in" and will seal it from the inside. Most put a tube in after putting in a boot. If the inside of the tire is rough, from some damage/hole/whatever, it is like a smooth patch so that the tube won't rub and then get a hole in it and go flat. Plus most tractor tires have liquid calcium in them which helps with weight, and such. Only someone experienced with tractor tires can recover most of that and put it back into a new tire(tube). Boots are also put inside large truck tires.
Obviously, you got it fixed/blown up in order to run it to cut.

Boot stage is what @Baymule said. As far as why not let the hay get seed heads the second time, they usually don't get to that stage. The grass/plant puts all it's effort into growing as fast as it can in the spring to be able to make a seed head to reproduce. That is what nature designed them for. If it has made a seedhead, even in the boot stage, it has "completed its task" and will not make another seedhead. It will continue to grow blades that will feed the roots through photosynthesis, but the reproduction (seed heads) is done. The second cutting also will not grow as tall nor will it be as coarse a stem. 2nd and third cutting is what we make nearly all into small square bales. The hay has a higher quality protein because it is not so much "stalk" which is lignin, which is to support the seed head. Plus you get into hotter weather, the cool season grasses do not perform in the hotter temps, and there is usually less moisture. The cool season grasses will go dormant in the heat. So they will not get near as tall.

You manage your hayfields according to the "majority" plants. Mostly orchard grass, you manage it for that; mostly alfalfa you manage/cut for the optimum output of that.

 

[mystang89]

Thanks again @farmerjan !

@mrs.mystang89 Those peacocks missed that No trespassing sign. We may never see them again now

 

[farmerjan]

After you make several trips around the pasture, then you can do one of 2 things. You can make a cut down the middle, splitting the size of the section you are cutting. Yes you will run over the uncut grass for one trip. Then when you get to the end of the long side, pick up the haybine, and proceed over the cut grass and line up and go down the long side again. You quit making corners with the haybine. You proceed to just make straight rows. And when you cut the section you ran the tractor tires over that was not cut, cut it from the opposite direction that you ran over it. If you run it slow enough, it will pick up all the hay you bent over by running the tractor on the uncut portion. Or you can just pick up the mower, travel over the cut hay, around the field not cutting anything, and then drop the mower and proceed to cut the other side.
Most of us here, actually make our first cut around the outside with the tractor against the fence or whatever the perimeter is, and the mower is on the inside. So the original cut is like the 2nd row in. Then go back and mow the outside with the tractor on the cut row. It is for the safety of making sure there are no obstructions/trees/down fence/wire/groundhog holes/ WHATEVER you can imagine, to come across with the mower. The width of the tractor is usually close to the width of the mown row, so it is not a problem. The hay is usually tall and you can't see an obstacle in time to stop and most problems will be along the outside row. Rather run up on a down tree hidden in the hay with the tractor than to run a piece up in the mower and tear it up. Also, we have alot of rock and ledges, and it just seems that the D#*#ed groundhogs will dig a new hole near the edge of a field and they are great at bringing up rocks and such that we inevitably hit.
A haybine is not near as bad as throwing stuff that it picks up as a discbine is. We used a haybine for years, that is what I learned to mow with. I do not use the discbine. It is bigger, mows much faster and is more dangerous. YOU HAVE TO use a closed cab tractor with a discbine. If the blades, which sorta look like the blades you can use on a weedeater but bigger and sharper, hit something, it will throw it. They operate as VERY FAST SPEEDS, and if a blade hits something and it breaks, they have been known to hit and break the back glass window on a tractor. They can hit and injure or kill an operator. Had one hit a fist sized rock last year and shattered the window behind my son. If he had been in an open cab tractor he could have been hit and hurt or killed. They mow fast, get down hay real good, and are a time saver but they can be dangerous. Not for an inexperienced person. A haybine like you are using, with the cutter bar.... is safer, and slower and great for someone who is not making hay in the quantities we are. And believe me, alot easier and cheaper to replace a few teeth/blades on it.

 

[mystang89]

Thank you once again @farmerjan . Quick question. When I split the field in half after I go around it a few times, and line my tractor up so that I'm going in straight lines won't I end up running over with the tractor tires what I cut when I was cutting the perimeter at least until I get the tractor lined up again? And this would happen each time I lined my tractor up to cut the straight lines? Is the amount of hay ran over by the tires negligible that it won't really make a difference?

 

[farmerjan]

Once it is cut, there is no "damage" to the green hay laying on the ground. If you split the field, you make one pass down the center, running over uncut hay with the tractor. Then when you get to the end, you will be running over cut hay to make the swing to come back to cut the next straight row. It won't hurt the already cut hay. There is nothing to hurt. Unless you are running through mud and getting it dirty or something, it is simply there. It has to dry, and running over it will simply compress the stems a bit.

 

[mystang89]

Thank you. I thought that by running over it again that I would increase the drying time. I went and bought the wheel rake from the same man today so that's where I'll be.

How close to the ground do you lower the tines of the wheels and how fast is best to go?