# Conditioning vs Straight Cut and Tedding



## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Was on a trip this weekend and stopped in at an ag dealer who sells Krone disc mowers and picked up a brochure. On thing I'll say about Krone literature is it is many pages and thorough - hopefully their mowers are as well done.

Krone makes a 3pt mounted disc mower with and without a conditioner. Never seen a conditioner on a 3pt mounted disc mower. IMHO for the tractor(s) we have a 3pt moco is a bit of a stretch. However, I really like the Krone EasyCut 280 as a straight cut disc mower. I like the all gear drive, the shear mechanism via roll pins on the cutters and the ability to park the machine with the disc mowing bar in the vertical position (read space saving in the barn).

But to get back on topic on my own post....

Am I loosing a day with no drying time without conditioning or can I make up for this with more frequent tedding? I cut two of my fields for the 2nd cutting at the same time. Beautiful hay, weed free, good color. We baled the fields one day apart. Started baling the first field at 17-18% moisture from several samples. Out of maybe 200, maybe 20 had a bit of dust. The field baled the next day was dust free. All the dusty bales were in the same place in the stack, so I'm thinking we just hit a windrow with a bit higher moisture in that part of the field. But I want dry/dust free hay!

Running a sickle mower right now and thinking from a conditioning standpoint, I ain't gaining anything by going to a straight disc mower. I'm reluctant to go pull behind discbine or haybine as we have some obstacles in our fields and the breakaway features of a 3pt mounted disc mower are appealing -just like with my sickle mower.

So as we plot the path forward, it is very likely a 3pt mounted disc mower will be what we would buy.

Question is - can we make up for the lack of conditioning with more frequent tedding? Presently orchard grass mix, soon to be timothy and some teff next year. One of these days, maybe a bit of alfalfa.

Any sage advice is much appreciated.

ps - anyone running one of these 3pt mounted Krone EastCut 280 mowers with the roll pin type shear protection vs the AM? Opinions/experiences with it?

Thanks!
Bill


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

I'm curious as well. I'm looking at a krone easycut but really wanted to get away from 3 pth. My Zetor drum is great, but just not big enough on my rough fields. Id rather go slow and do a wide swath than try to make up time lost due to a narrow mower by going fast. When it comes to flat smooth fields I can outcut a wider disk due to the speed I can cut, but smooth flat fields are a rarity in Maine.

I do mostly balage, so conditioning isn't much of an issue, but the money is in dry hay, so I may want to keep my options open.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Maybe Krone.1 will visit....and give some perspective.

Regards, Mike


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

leeave96 said:


> Am I loosing a day with no drying time without conditioning or can I make up for this with more frequent tedding? I


Depends upon the grass type.....fescue dries just fine here with out conditioning....but Orchard, Timothy, and Alfalfa seem to dry much better with conditioning...here.

Frequent tedding results in greater color loss here...

Hay is like horses....in that color sells!

Regards, Mike


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

I have said it before and probably will repeat my self again, read and STUDY the WV publication

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/pubnwsltr/TRIM/5811.pdf.

It applies East of most of I-35.

Hay cut with a simple mower, with the swath board removed, left out flat will cure than conditioned hay dropped into a windrow, will cure one day faster.

My option would be to have a 9 ft cutter bar for both bermudagrass hay and alfalfa hay.

As it is I use a 7 ft disk mower for bermudagrass. I use a NH 441 disk for alfalfa until mid mid June, the start of our stripped blister beetle. I would like to trade them for a 9 ft Disk Mower on a Caddy. That way I can mow creek banks with less worry about slipping into the creek.

What I have now are paid for. The NH 411 has the windrow shaping doors removed and added chaff baffles to spread the hay out to 9 feet.

Send off to Cornell U for their Silage & Hay Preservation. NRAES-5; August 1990,

ISBN o-935817-47-6.

Cornell 152 Riley-Robb Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-5701. I paid roughly $15.

Section 2 pages 21 to 28 are all I needed for dry hay.

OOPs I heard the Cornell text is no longer available as it is out of print. If some one had not picked up my copy I could copy the text and sell it over the internet. It is or at least was a really good reference source.

Wisconsin's Dan Undersander probably still has his copy.

I can understand how conditioning the courser grass would do well with coditioning. After all the machine with double set of conditioner would not sell as well or the tool that comes back and reconditions the hay. Bermudagrass is 70% leaf and when spread out wide will me mostly cured by that first sunset. If I was into growing Haygrazor for hay. That is a hay crop that does well with a thick stem. That thick stem is filled with feed value.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

It depends.

For my environment, a moco for both alfalfa and first cutting OG, followed by tedding once works best. In most cases, this gives me "mow Monday, bale Wednesday". On 2nd and later cuttings, a moco works best for alfalfa, makes little difference on OG. Tedding these cutting depends on the crop density, ground moisture and weather conditions (cloudiness, temperature, RH).

I've gone with the attitude that tedding more than once should be avoided at all costs! This means I have to set up and operate the tedder so that it picks up and spreads the crop evenly across all available ground in one trip.

Ralph


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Thanks for the info - very helpful.

Bill


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

I wouldn't want to be without a conditioner. No question that conditioning helps cure first cuttings of orchard and timothy quicker but doesn't seem to benefit second and later cuttings as much unless there is a lot of volunteer crabgrass. It is essential that alfalfa gets conditioned here to get it to cure in a timely fashion. I try to only Ted my hay once at most. The more you Ted the more bleached the hay will be and every trip with the tedder is a little lost tonnage.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

FarmerCline said:


> I wouldn't want to be without a conditioner. No question that conditioning helps cure first cuttings of orchard and timothy quicker but doesn't seem to benefit second and later cuttings as much unless there is a lot of volunteer crabgrass. It is essential that alfalfa gets conditioned here to get it to cure in a timely fashion. I try to only Ted my hay once at most. The more you Ted the more bleached the hay will be and every trip with the tedder is a little lost tonnage.


And more fossil fuels burnt.....double whammy


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