# Heavy dew vs rain



## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

Here lately we've been having heavy dew in the mornings. Heavy enough that it won't completely dry off until almost noon some days. Wouldn't this be similar to a slow rain or heavy mist during the night? Is this something people take into consideration when buying? Or is saying this hay was never rained on kinda like calling a mutt a dog? Just wandering.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Dew is perfect for rolling into your hay. Unlike rain which is heavier or can occur at night and cause molding, wrankness to hay, dew burns off after early AM with the sun, so it's unlikely to cause mold. 
The ideal situation for me is when hay that's ready to be baled nice and green, but dry that day gets dew on it (unless it's super heavy), and bale the hay with a light amount of dew on it.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

It's all water. If it's gone when you bale it, nobody has to know.


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## weatherman (Dec 5, 2008)

8350HiTech said:


> It's all water. If it's gone when you bale it, nobody has to know.


We have been getting heavy dew here in SW Ohio. Also we haven't had a decent rainfall for several weeks. I cut some hay, laid it wide, last Friday with the chance of scattered showers Saturday. Early Saturday with almost no dew it started to sprinkle, lasted about 15 minutes. I would compare it to a heavy dew. I didn't check the hay field until I went to Ted around 11am. No issues. Hay a little moiste near the ground. By 3pm Saturday started to bale. Moisture meter reading 11-13 percent. Made some really nice hay.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Too many heavy dews will cause bleaching though, Grandfather always said it was because each drop of dew acted like a mini magnifying glass, I don't know about that but the later in the year it gets the harder it is too keep it that dark green color. Sometimes here I've had dews hang on till almost 2pm, then of course by 5 or 6 its already getting tough again. I've had down for a week before till it was finally dry.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I wonder how much an inline moisture monitor says dew affects hay? I do not consider dew in the same category as rain. Rain seems to beat the hay down and the droplets are heavy enough to make it to the ground. I have had dew that was just resting on top of the hay. The hay underneath would still be dry.

Can a light dew sweat out of a round bale and not cause mold?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Tim/South said:


> I wonder how much an inline moisture monitor says dew affects hay? I do not consider dew in the same category as rain. Rain seems to beat the hay down and the droplets are heavy enough to make it to the ground. I have had dew that was just resting on top of the hay. The hay underneath would still be dry.
> 
> Can a light dew sweat out of a round bale and not cause mold?


I had a brand of acid I used to use that had a chart that listed both dew moisture and stem moisture, if its a heavy enough dew and sets in early the night before I've had some really wet hay in the morning you thought got rained on.


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## chevytaHOE5674 (Mar 14, 2015)

We get heavy dew just about every night all summer long UP here. Dew is usually on in the evening by 7pm and this year hasn't been burning off until at least noon. (Its currently 2pm here and there is still heavy dew on the grass even in the sun). Often times our dew will accumulate and be measurable in the rain gauge.

It makes it very difficult to get hay dry, it also results in a lot of color loss in the hay. And just like rained on hay if you don't ted/rake to get the moisture out it will get moldy and rank. Then if it does rain its almost impossible to get the hay dry because you have such a short window of dry weather without dew.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

thendrix said:


> Here lately we've been having heavy dew in the mornings. Heavy enough that it won't completely dry off until almost noon some days. Wouldn't this be similar to a slow rain or heavy mist during the night? Is this something people take into consideration when buying? Or is saying this hay was never rained on kinda like calling a mutt a dog? Just wandering.


What crop are you drying down Hendrix? Even different Bermuda grasses behave differently with dew. Like was mentioned in an earlier post, the biggest problem with dew is the bleaching effect. The water does magnify the Suns rays and bleaches the crop more than is necessary. One has to be careful when baling with dew moisture in grass, I don't chance it unless necessary. To Tim's question.....if the moisture is felt by the hand, I don't put it in the bale if it's horse hay.....if it's cow hay I will roll it, it seems to just turn to dust, a form of mold but not enuf to cause serious problems.....I never store it in the dry. 
Another consideration, is the crop type.....Tift 85 has a tendency to regain moisture during heavy dews, whereas Alicia may raise a bit but not as significant as 85 or larger stemmed varieties.

So what to do to combat heavy dews....first it is good to know the dew point and know whether dew is going to be a problem. If it is, I try to combat it by double winrowing the crop into small windrows the evening before hand. This exposes less surface area to the dew and thus less color loss. The crop will continue to dry in the small rows but I like to merge the rows together about 1-2 and bale shortly thereafter.....hth


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

I'm cutting fescue/Johnson. This isn't something that's been a problem for me. Just something I thought of and wandered about.


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