# Nonconditioned Alfalfa Considerations



## OKrookie (Jan 10, 2010)

I have horse friends that want a local supplier of alfalfa hay, and they have chosen me as their guinea pig. Because of the blister beetle, they need it uncrimped. I have read some articles on this site and elsewhere for reducing drying time, and it seems that the major consensus is "the wider the windrow, the better" It still seems that it would take forever for the stems to dry and by that time the leaves would be dust. If there is anyone out there that has experience baling unconditioned alfalfa, I would appreciate your guidance.

Questions: Under a given set of weather conditions how much longer to dry?
Can roller crimpers be adjusted so they won't crimp at all?
If so, can you ever get a windrow to 70% of cut width with a conditioner? or do I need to just plan on a straight sickle bar or rotary mower?
Should I just plan on using a preservative and baling with a higher moisture content to preserve leaves?


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## Hedge tree (Jul 18, 2008)

You are in a tough part of Oklahoma to put up alfalfa hay....generally don't see much grown in the Tulsa to Muskogee corridor. Folks with horses are being 'educated' about blister beetles at Horsefests, special publications they take, etc. Only a few years ago they had no idea what a blister beetle was. (Too bad these same sources of information don't explain to them that striped hay and browner hay can be as good a feed as the bright green stuff they want that can actually be poorer in quality).

An OSU publication by Mulder and Caddel (F-2072) written in 1972 is a guide a number of horse owners have in their possession. That is getting close to 40 y.o. but the basic info therein is sound....tire traffic and conditioner rolls can crush the beetles releasing the chemical cantharidin which blisters internal and external body tissues. The striped beetles are the most potent, and they tend to swarm in huge aggregations in only one part of the field...so they account for most cases of blister beetle toxicity. The black ones tend to be more spread out. Doses of cantharidin that prove toxic are pretty variable...but 2-8 flakes of alfalfa heavily infested with the chemical and/or dead beetles can prove fatal to a 1,000 lb. horse. Horses that are hand fed alfalfa by the flake rarely get enough to cause death...but illness can occur and must be observed by the owner.

Peak occurence of the beetles here in Ks is from early June through August...which is about our late 2nd or 3rd cutting. Some years you see them much earlier....and then into September (like this past season), but generally it is the hotter part of summer. Cuttings 2 and 3 have the greatest risk of beetles here...and most likely down your way.

Studies have shown that a self propelled swather, without conditioners operating, and straddling the previous windrow account for the least number of mechanically killed beetles. They tend to swarm at field edges and are in small areas (about the size of a pickup)....and the more bloom in your field the more chance they will be there getting nectar for energy to reproduce. The old idea of a sickle mower is based on no conditioner rolls, but forgot to include the issue that you drive on the previously cut swath and have a tendency to kill large numbers of beetles if they are under the hay. Raking CAN remove dead beetles as they fall out, but the chemical might well remain in the hay. Spraying can kill large swarms, but then there is wait period prior to cutting...and beetles can swarm in another area within 1 hour. Pivot tongue swathers can work like a self propelled if you straddle the previous windrow....but you still drive over the ends when you turn just like with a self propelled...and beetles tend to be on the edges.

Therefore: there is no such a thing as certified 'blister beetle free hay". Some strategies work for reducing the likelihood of contamination.....baling the 1st and 4th or last cutting in small squares for horses, avoiding an area in the field with visible swarms (they are easy to see...and the blooms will be gone), try to cut hay for horses with minimal bloom present, use cutting machinery that has the least likelihood of crushing beetles. I use a NH 499 and lay the hay in a swath as wide as I can straddle with my tractor without running on it. I use a conditioner heavily in the 1st and 2nd cutting...back it off as far as I can and still have it feed hay through the machine for cuttings late 2nd and 3rd. The end windrows, generally 4, are either baled in round bales for cow hay...or in small squares and stacked separately for goat and sheep owners, or cow guys. A few bales at less money can sure prevent beetles in hay for horses. A tedder will help dry un-conditioned hay, but most hay dry down is achieved through sun light heating the moisture in the leaves and stems and that escaping. Crimps help...but you can give yourself an advantage by cutting hay earlier in the day (say 10:00 a.m.) and the pores or stomata under the leaves stay open until dusk. You will get rid of a lot of moisture that way on a sunny day. Once the sun goes down, or it is cloudy, these pores close and never re-open. Lights on swathers are not a good idea for fast dry down of hay. Horse folks should take care in feeding their horses and not allow 'free choice' of alfalfa. Flake feeding HAS detected either the beetles in the hay...or a horse not acting 'right' and restricting alfalfa until they find out what is wrong.

This is a tough business, especially in your area where there is a large concentration of horse owners and a need for quality hay. I have customers down that way. If you can grow alfalfa...you might consider mixing it with a grass type and have a mixture. These mixes (I use brome and alfalfa..orchard grass is good as well). These mixes are much less likely to harbor blister beetles and actually make excellent hay for working horses. Most horse owners should not be feeding straight alfalfa unless they have brood mares or hard working horses....but that is another issue altogether.

Good luck....and never, ever say you have blister beetle free hay. We have a waiver they must sign saying we are not responsible for the side effects of our hay products. If they want the hay, they will sign and take some responsibility themselves for the well being of their animals. Vets, when a horse is ill and they don't know for sure what it is, always say it is the feed. Blister beetles is their big 'fall back' position....without any proof whatsoever.


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

*Because of the blister beetle, they need it uncrimped. *This is an excellent idea. If you are at at all concious you can see the critters two or more rounds before you reach the beetles. The will be in a dense swarm on the standing alfalfa. If you get down and look you will see the little critters. Here the Striped Beetles, the most toxic ones, come out of the ground around mid June (June teenth). So I stop using the conditioning mower about the first of June. The beetles will be in a cluster roughly in an area that can be covered by a PU truck. 
that the major consensus is "*the wider the windrow, the better*" 
This is very true! There is some information that shows the effect of the swath width has on drying time. Drying time goes up exponentially as the swath is narrowed down to a windrow. Use a simple swath board. Plan to be done mowing by about 3 pm CDT to give the hay time to cure down to 48% moisture by dark. 
Even better is if the hay is fluffed up with a tedder behind the mower. The key is the more hay that is *exposed to the direct rays of sunshine *the faster it will cure. 
That first day close to a third of the moisture will exit the plant through the little breathing holes in the leaves (Stomata). Put the hay in the shade and those stomata will close up. 
Day two is mostly heating the stem moisture with sunshine. This increases the vapor pressure in the stems and leaves and forces the moisture out through the nearest opening. Depending on the quality of the sunlight you want to rake the hay into a windrow at first light the morning of the third or fourth day. And bale the fourth or fifth day. Roughly close to sunset the day before baling the hay wants to be dry enough that the skin on the stems can not be pealed with your finger nail. At that time the leaves are as dry as gun powder! *Note* no sunshine will greatly delay curing!
The day of baling you want to start baling when the humidity inside the windrow is 65%. At that time well cured hay will bale at 18% to 20% moisture. (I bale a 55 pound bale, that is 35" long and I try to bale as close to 11 strokes per bale as I can without going under 11 strokes per bale. Usually average 13 to 15 strokes per bale.Here I have 2 hours of baling before the hay is too dry to bale. That is about 55% maybe even 50% humidity at the windrow or about 12% moisture. You an see the leaves starting to fly and that is time to start picking up and hauling the hay. )

The rules are RH at the hay at or above 90% the hay is tough enough to rake!
At 65% RH the hay will bale no lower than 18% moisture. At 55 maybe 50% RH the hay will bale in the 12% moisture range, if the hay is cured. If there is still some stem moisture that will complicate things and increase your risk for mold.

This is a tough business, especially in your area where there is a large concentration of horse owners and a need for quality hay. I have customers down that way. If you can grow alfalfa...you might consider mixing it with a grass type and have a mixture. These mixes (I use brome and alfalfa..orchard grass is good as well). These mixes are much less likely to harbor blister beetles and actually make excellent hay for working horses. Unfortunately the blister beetle lives and grows on grasshopper eggs, in the ground. They only need the high energy when they come out to fly and to breed. Anywhere in the whole world that has both grasshoppers and flowering plants there are some form of blister beetle. There is no little hidden valley in Wyoming where there are no blister beetles! 
*Most horse owners should not be feeding straight alfalfa unless they have brood mares or hard working horses....but that is another issue altogether.*This is so true. I try to sell only bermudagrass hay, that will test 12% CP, to horse owning hay buyers. The exception is a brood mare with a colt at her side, or a horse in training for the Rodeo or Race Track. If they have a stud that is standing three times a day he also can utilize all the energy in alfalfa. If a horse is susceptible to foundering they need to feed them very mature grass hay that may test 8% CP. 
More horses will be put down for foundering than will for blister beetle poisoning. Foundering is completely under the management control of the owners.

*Good luck....and never, ever say you have blister beetle free hay. We have a waiver they must sign saying we are not responsible for the side effects of our hay products. If they want the hay, they will sign and take some responsibility themselves for the well being of their animals. Vets, when a horse is ill and they don't know for sure what it is, always say it is the feed. Blister beetles is their big 'fall back' position....without any proof whatsoever*. 
*Your responsibility is to use the best management techniques *that will minimize any beetle threat. That is to cut with out using a conditioning mower, during the beetle season. Be alive and well, (paying attention to the work at hand) when mowing. Keeping an eye out for the beetles. If you see them simply pick up the mower and skip over where they are. 
The lethal dose for a 1,000 lb animal is 55 *stripped blister beetles*. Be it a rabbit of elephant the lethal dose is based on animal weight. That translates to 10 beetles to kill a 200 lb man or boar goat. The kicker is the silly horse will die from colic at less than a lethal dose. The lethal dose for a gray or black BB is roughly 200 beetles.

The plant of choice for the blister beetle is the Night Shade Family. If there is a nice big silver leaf nightshade patch in a grass hay meadow and it is loaded with blister beetles you can have blister beetle poisoning.

How hay is contaminated is when the hay is conditioned the poison bearing blood of the beetle gets on the hay. The hay is now contaminated, even if no beetles end up in the bales. 
If you bale at night, then you can end up with hundreds of dead beetles in each wedge. At night the beetles put up inside the windrow then are baled up.

In my youth, all hay was cut with a simple mower. At that time only Alfalfa from the western states was found to have beetle poison. The the mower conditioner came along and the Pride Of Kentucky Alfalfa was found to also be a danger to the horse trade. They did not bale the beetles up but they crushed them with the conditioning rollers.

Your customers must realize there is absolutely no way to guarantee against beetle poisoning if they feed hay made from plants that were in bloom when cut. Which brings us to the last point. If they want alfalfa hay cut in bud stage, with no blooms, then they must strictly limit feed that hay. *It is way too rich for a horse. This is Dairy Quality hay.* Way too rich for a horse. For a horse alfalfa cut at 50% bloom is what they want. This is where the grass alfalfa mix come in. Cut it when the alfalfa is in bud stage and the grass will dilute the carbohydrates and protein levels. Timothy is such a sorry hay that it does well mixed with alfalfa. Dairy quality hay is only used as an occasional treat not part of the ration.

All most forgot. The Vets know a lot about animals, but are mostly ignorant about hay quality and blister beetles. 
If a horse is run over by a truck the Vet is just as likely to say it died from blister beetle poisoning! (A little poetic licence there! )


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

Blister Beetles in Alfalfa | University of Kentucky Entomology

ENTFACT-102
Download Printable Version (PDF)
BLISTER BEETLES IN ALFALFA
by L.H. Townsend, Extension Entomologist
University of Kentucky College of Agriculture
Try this also: 
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts102

Unfortunatly the link I have for the Oklahoma Alfalfa Guide For the Southern Great Plains is not working,,


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

Missouri blister beetle information:
G4569 Blister Beetle Management in Alfalfa | University of Missouri Extension


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## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

Hedge tree said:


> Most horse owners should not be feeding straight alfalfa unless they have brood mares or hard working horses....but that is another issue altogether.


Don't know if we've always been been lucky or what, but we've always kept our horses with our cows over the winter and they all get alfalfa free choice. Never an issue. We do only feed them "cattle grade" alfalfa though.


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## OKrookie (Jan 10, 2010)

Hay Wilson and Hedge Tree,

Thanks for your input. I greatly appreciate it. If my horse-owning buyers agree to purchase crimped first and last cuttings, I might buy a self-propelled swather to help me with dry down time for those cuttings. My concern is with the cuttings in between. Even if I can adjust the roller crimpers so no beetles would be crushed can I get a windrow wide enough for good dry down time? Is there a brand out there that can give you a windrow that nears 70% of cut width?


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

Even if I can adjust the roller crimpers so no beetles would be crushed can I get a windrow wide enough for good dry down time? Is there a brand out there that can give you a windrow that nears 70% of cut width? 

Without some kind of spreading devise the best you can do is the width of the rollers. Few machines have conditioning rollers more than 6 feet wide, 5 feet is more like it.

New Holland has a set of 4 paddles that are bolted to the deflector. To get the spreading effect the doors that form a windrow have to be removed. Not a difficult task but it is something else to do.

With my 9 ft disk mower conditioner I do find it useful to close the doors some to concentrate the hay, when cutting a thin stand. The idea of 100% of the ground being covered is not the big deal it is having all or most of the hay in direct sunshine. 
Most of my alfalfa fields are smooth enough that I can cut at 11 mph. (Have to down shift to turn on the ends!) With a bigger engine I could cut in road gear, but that is a lot of strain on the mower if the ground is at all rough. Any roughness at all & I drop down to 7 mph so I will not tear up the machinery.

Now the Western Growers with their hot dry winds and really low humidity can drop their hay in a windrow, because they really do not NEED the drying effect of the direct sun. This eliminates a lot of the bleaching effect of the sun also.

I do not believe I would consider running a conditioning machine with the rollers spread. I do not think that would get past a smart "Trial" Lawyer. You want to give the perception that you are using all the best management practices to prevent contaminated hay. 
Normally it does not hurt the hay to run your tires over the down hay, but you do not want to crush the beetles with your tractor tires by running over the hay and beetles at the same time. That is why when I see the beetles I pickup the mower and skip over that little trouble spot.

Blister beetles are interesting. 
In most cases there are not any blister beetles in an alfalfa field. When their are the area is not very large. Say three semi truck loads go out. Most likely only one load will have beetle contamination. And possibly only a few on that truck load will have any contamination. The contamination may be confined to one 30 bale area of that load. That load may be sold to 10 different horse feeding buyers. One maybe two of those buyers will be plum upset.

The National Hay Association used to offer Product Liability Insurance with their dues. They had to drop that service when decayed mouse parts made some dairy cattle sick one year and horse another year had problems. Even with a $5,000 deductible it was not possible to offer the insurance.


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## OKrookie (Jan 10, 2010)

Hay Wilson,
Thanks again for your guidance. OK, sounds like I should go with a nonconditioning machine. I have access to a 9' disk mower. I have a 100 hp JD 5101. With smooth fields do you think I could cut at 11 mph with the disk mower? Also, on your previous reply when you were discussing RH at the windrow, you stated you stopped baling when RH reached approx 50% when leaves started to fly. At that point you quit baling and started hauling. As the day progresses, do you start baling again?


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## OKrookie (Jan 10, 2010)

Forgot to ask---Is there a manufacturer that makes a self-propelled mower/swather with no conditioner??


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

OKrookie said:


> Forgot to ask---Is there a manufacturer that makes a self-propelled mower/swather with no conditioner??


Yes.Most of the crimpers are removable on the drapper style heads so you can cut small grains with them.Most auger style heads use the crimper for swath forming by throwing hay threw forming shields,but they may be able to remove the crimper and put in filler plates behind auger.


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## rrranch (Oct 15, 2009)

I took the crimper section off my swivel tongue new holland last year and love the way it works compared to with the conditioners. Mostly less parts to break is what I love most but it does lay the row out a lot wider and actually dries about a day faster in my alfalfa now.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

rrranch said:


> I took the crimper section off my swivel tongue new holland last year and love the way it works compared to with the conditioners. Mostly less parts to break is what I love most but it does lay the row out a lot wider and actually dries about a day faster in my alfalfa now.


You must have a lot more favorable weather than a lot of us to make hay in. Even after tedding it and spreading it out clear out, there's times we have to go in and ted it again. Not unheard of depending on the time of year to have to go in and re-ted it 3,4 or even 5 times.


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

I believe there are "Swathers" on the market. you will just have to check with your dealer(s). They are used to lay small grains down in a windrow to dry enough to combine the grain. The self propelled mower conditioner is probably a descendent of the "Swather".

As to a long armed disk mower the a limiting factor is the break away speed. You can mow faster than the breakaway speed. I have done just that, on smooth ground where there are no surprises. If the field has short runs and lots of turns I probably would cut at a speed I feel comfortable when turning.
I was asked how fast I can mow with my disk mower, & I said 18 mph as that is as fast as the tractor will go turning the PTO at 540 RPM. ( I really did not believe he would take me seriously but he did and busted some iron when he hit a surprise in his field. )

Vermeer has a machine that almost looks like a pull type MoCo but has no conditioning. 
I have not seen a self propelled MoCo up close and personal, but I would think there is too much iron on the ends of the cutter bar to allow for a free flow of mowed hay.

Hopefully a Canadian or a Northern Tier State small grain grower can enlighten us on "Swathers".

Hedge tree I just noticed your Little River location. The town here is Little River, TX.
Is Gary Kilgore still active as a Kansas Extension Forage Specialist?

If Oklahoma's John Caddel is still working he would be a good one to talk to. Email
[email protected] or maybe [email protected]


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