Educate me on hay!

Hey all, I've been participating in a haying operation at my parent's neighbors place forever..literally. In my childhood the neighbor had 9 show horses. They moved in the late 90's and I took over the entire haying operation for the new neighbor. He had some beef cattle for awhile, but nothing anymore. The hay now gets sold to a local horse stable and they're happy with it. We squarbale and I know how to make good dry hay. What I'm wondering, is how do I identify what kind of grasses we have growing? It's a big jumble of all kinds of stuff with different grasses growing at the top of the field than at the bottom (it's a 25 acre field on a hillside). I'd like to try to improve the field if at all possible, but I honestly don't have a clue on what to do.
Recently, my future father-in-law has decided to take over the haying operation on his property (200+ acres). They've been leasing it out forever but the guy doing it is messing stuff up. He's been round baling it for beef cattle and the plan is to continue round baling and sell the bales off the field. The hay in all of his fields looks radically different than the hay in my parent's neighbors, and honestly, just doesn't look very good. It seems kinda weedy and has brush growing in it. How do we fix it??
If anyone can supply me with a nauseating amount of information that would be terrific!!

First picture is hay; second is horse feed (grass).

Allan

Allan,

Do you mean "alfalfa" when you say hay? That's kind of what it looks like to me (nice looking field, too!).

es

Oops,

Kind of let that one slip, didn't I? :>)

Don't care much for grass hay; just doesn't pack the punch that alfalfa does as far as feed value goes.

Seems to take twice the amount of grass hay to do the same job.

Allan

If you are dealing with horses, the most popular types of hay are timothy or orchard grass. A quick search on the web should give you enough pictures to be able to ID these plants. Horse people will also like a little alfalfa in the mix too (10 to 15 % usually). I would check with the stable you are sending it to and see what they would like.

If there are only a few weeds in your field, you may be able to get away with making sure that your pH levels are ok and just keep cutting the hay regularly. Broadcasting some fresh seed in the fall (without refiting the field) could also help.

If there are a lot of weeds or brush, you might want to concider completely refiting the field. It will cost a lot more, but you'll have a great stand of hay if you do it right. You can do this without loosing a year of production if you fit the field after you are done with the crop for that year and seed it down in the fall (I usually seed my fields early to mid-August in Western New York).

Josh in WNY

first sample the soil and get it tested then apply lime this fall as the test calls for then fertilize in the spring according to the test. If you feed it good grass will grow and crowd out the weeds. then you can ID what is growing from the seed heads just before you cut it so that you can tell your customers what they want to hear. moisture makes a big difference in what grows so don't worry about the difference between top and bottom

We don't really have alfalfa around here, I think a neighbour had an acre of it once to try it. Didn't do well.

What brings the protein here is balage which silage made by plastic wrapping relatively wet grass hay bales. When done properly it out performs any dry hays. Of course completely useless for sale to horse owners unless they have a big operation and an open mind. Most think it will kill a horse.