The way we farm has sure changed over time

Bruce from Can.

Well-known Member
When I was a kid, you might start to cut hay, if
weather cooperated , in June. Most hay was
harvested in July, and some second cut in August.
Now, I start cutting hay in May, and do hay all
through June ,July , August, September, and now
for the second year, I am doing hay in October. No
one ever would think of making hay in October back
in the sixties, just sounds nuts. Even though you
could chop hay into a silo, silo unloading was
always a pain with hay, so few put up haylage.
Anyhow, nice weather for a few days, and this field
is due to be rotated, so I might as well cut the hay
off, round bale it, and wet wrap. Days are short, due
is heavy and dry hay is unlikely.
Wonder what my Dad or Grandfather would have
thought about spreading the haying season
acrossed 6 months? Remember, I live in tropical
southern Canada, lol. We some times have snow in
October.
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So true. We are only able to do this due to advances in plant genetics and the machinery available to us....and likely a bit of climate change as well. Add up the horsepower on your farm, Bruce, probably more than the whole township had in our grandparents' time. Ben
 

I remember my mother telling how on July 4th her father would get the scythe out, sharpen it up, and do a little trimming around the buildings in preparation the start of haying the next day. Fast forward forty years, in October, the farmer that I worked for would pick me up after school, and we would go with his high-sided pick-up to get green feed. He would have cut and raked it green earlier, then baled it into six inch long bales with no tension on the baler. He would drive along the row of bales and I would walk beside the truck and toss the bales into the back of the truck with a hay fork.
 
We have lots of hay, but the quality is not as good a last year, cows aren't going to milk as well on this summers hay, not enough sunshine. All my buddies are having a tough time getting the volume of milk from their cows that they expect. Though butter fat is up.
 
My equipment is pretty old compared to yours, but still managed to mow/tedd/rake/round bale 85 acres of first cut by myself while working my town job over a 3-1/2 week period (ok, used a couple vacation days).

I remember forking loose hay up on a wagon to my Grandpa, and stowing it in the mow(he didn't want to hire the baling done on a couple real small fields)... He would be amazed at what we could do now.

And the fields I thought were big while square baling when I was a kid...not so much anymore.

Fred
 
Do yours cows show any taste preferences for different types of hay. That hay in the picture looks pretty lush. But comparing plastic wrapped bales, unwrapped bales, haylage, silage do the cows know the difference. The stand in the picture looks good enough to possibly make hay from in 2018.
 
My cows will eat every crumb of hay out of a wet bale of this kind of hay. Even grass hay seems to be more to the cows liking with the fermented taste. Sometimes dry hay can be sharp and hard, and cows will tend to sort through it more. The haylage bales are soft , and much easier to save good quality.
 
Back during the 1970's when dairies on this road were plentiful everybody chopped a good portion of first cutting into the silo. This usually happened around late May/ Early June to get second cutting going. Guys who could or would not make hay silage were at a disadvantage because if drying weather did not come until late June or early July they did not make as much tonnage for the year putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
 
We are about to start 5th cutting to the tune of 1200 acres. GPS guided steering and the whole nine yards. Sometimes I wish I would have been around to see how the same process was done before my time. The technology is nice but sometimes simple is nice too.
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My father never got the memo. He farmed exactly the same way from 1920 to 1980. The only difference was, he pulled two and four row equipment with a tractor instead of horses. Everything else was "Humbug", his favorite expression.
 
I was telling some town friends the other day, I haul 2.5 times as many bushels of grain per acre off my farm as dad did. A bit of that is a crop shift from beans to more corn, but a lot has to do with better planter, grid soil sampling and fertilizing, more tile, etc.

I can plant like I always did more or less time wise, but harvest has become a struggle to keep up with the amount of product handled.

Paul
 
Bruce-I can't believe you're not going to make hay off that field for a few more years.It looks like a good second cutting should look,let alone fifth! Do you have problems with it freezing/dying out? That seems like too good of a stand to kill off deliberately.Mark
 
We only bale dry hay for sales to horsey folk here. But my dad grew up on a dairy with his grandfather and he always marvels at the corn production of some of the bigger dairy's around us...the speed at which they run their 12 row chopper through the field filling dump trucks at amazing speeds. He remembers days pulling the 1 row chopper with a ub diesel to fill 2 wagons (flatbed hay wagons with temp sides put on, then getting to the blower to get it in the silo and, if the day was problem free, getting out to do it again.

On my way home from work, I sat with my 4 year old so he could watch the corn "chomper" do its work ("chomping corn"). We also pull in the driveway to see the combine. He still doesn't understand why someone would draw a Deer on a machine that makes food for cows.
 
I don't know how we ever farmed without all the equipment they have now.

We quit in 2006. We only had two tractors,and two single axle trucks. We didn't have a four wheel drive pickup till 1990. Didn't have a loader,or a skid steer,seed caddy, or a four wheeler, or mule. Didn't have a sprayer, we had a spade. Used a shovel to fill the grain drills which were rope trip in till 1994.
 
Well Mark , believe it, this field is going to get ploughed under, it is it's turn in rotation. While it may still look like a good crop this year , I know it will really start to put up less and less hay every year. So I might as well turn it over now , and let a grain crop make good use of the nitrogen fixed on the roots of the legumes , instead of it being used up growing grass and dandelions. Also a good place to get rid of some cow manure too. Two years in grain , and back to hay.
 
How many years in hay do you leave it? When we raised tobacco,I rotated about 3-4 yrs in hay,usually alfalfa,alfalfa mix,then back to tobacco. I know about it thinning out,but from the pic it still looks good. And I know when it's time to rotate,to stick to the schedule,then it's time.Mark
 
I have been around baleage when the plastic is cut,and man,it almost smells good enough for me to eat some !! Mark
 

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