# Midwest bales per acre 3rd cutting



## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

Im curious how users around my state did on hay for 2nd and 3rd cutting. I live in Marengo,Illinois, about an hour and a half west of chicago. We had no substantial rain after 1st cutting. We averaged Ten bales an acre for second and 3rd was less than one bale an acre. I bale about 130 acres on a mix of ground but mostly clay and hilly. It was very depressing rake up crumbs to try to make up losses. Let me know how bad everyone else did.. Hope not this bad


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## brandenburgcattle42 (Sep 6, 2012)

We r here around decatur il, we accumulated 2" of rain from april 1 till issac came. You are about in the ball park on field made 21 bale to the acre but its damn good ground. 10 to 15 is where we were at on 50# bales. Thing that hurt us is we have all mix alfalfa orchard or festullium and the grass just wasnt there after first cutting.


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## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

ha! we even missed issac! I forgot to mention that we make 50 lb bales also, using new holland balers. Also we also have mostly grass with like 30% alfalfa on most of our fields. The 100 % alfalfa did.the best obviously.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Just baled some 3rd cut alfalfa that had been brown since late may and was almost knee high now. It made 1.2 bales per acre. BUT the bales averaged 2000 lbs at about 40% moisture. Bales per acre means nothing, compare DRY MATTER PER ACRE then everything is equal. Mine was 1500 lbs dry matter per acre which is not bad for the stand I have, the weather I have had and the soil type that the alfalfa is on.


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## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

If your baling @ 40% moisture, are you then treating it with the acid to keep it from molding? But either way you did immensely better than I did. You may have caught some of the rains that missed us. The stuff I cut and baled was all around 21% moisture.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

sethd11 said:


> If your baling @ 40% moisture, are you then treating it with the acid to keep it from molding? But either way you did immensely better than I did. You may have caught some of the rains that missed us. The stuff I cut and baled was all around 21% moisture.


Treated with silo-king and plastic wrap. Made silage bales.


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## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

Third cutting on good alfalfa/grass went 220lbs. /acre. Located near I-35 and I-90 in north central Iowa


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## brandenburgcattle42 (Sep 6, 2012)

I also had an alfalfa festuollium stand 8 years old so 50% grass now make exactly one ton to the acre we baled sept [email protected] 15%. But we grazed it short in may and never touched it till we baled it in sept. Didnt know if the grass was going to make it through the drought but it came back. Not really a fair comparison but very surprised on a stand that old with mostly grass to rebound and produce like that.


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## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

Im surprised the grass came back, all the grass in our fields went died amd hasnt come back. Im hoping that we get a high moisture spring to give it an extra kick so I can pay for that new baler.


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