# Hay Management: Coastal Bermuda



## GeneRector (Jun 4, 2008)

Howdy! What are some things that you can realistically do to speed up curing of a fresh cut coastal bermuda hay meadow? A lot depends on the weather, etc.; however, does a tedder, crimper, roller, etc. speed up curing? How do you cure hay prior to baling? Your views appreciated? Always, Gene


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## RCF (Sep 14, 2009)

We use mower/conditioners with the impeller conditioners on our hay then come back through with a tedder and fluff it out and then depending on the time of year and all the other variables it is usually ready to bale the day after tedding it in an average Coastal field. Most around here though use a regular mower then let it lay a day then roll it up.


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

If you really want you can start mowing right after the dew is off the grass and bale it that night. I do not advise it but it is possible for your July cutting.

Here just south of Temple, TX I like to start cutting so my job is half done at 1:30 pm and to be done by about 3 pm. With bermudagrass you can use some kind of conditioning if you wish. I have not conditioned bermudagrass hay for maybe 25 years. Bermudagrass has such a high percentage of it's bulk as leaves that it is only marginally needed to crack the stems.

Say I cut on Tuesday, I lay the hay out as wide as the practical. If it is a heavy cutting and will make 80 to 90 bales an acre (+/- 4 RB's/A) I will follow the mower with a tedder to get 100% of the ground covered and fluff up the hay for maximum exposure to the direct rays of the sun.

Then first light I will rake the hay on Thursday morning, when our humidity is the highest.

Then I will bale on Friday when the humidity, down next to the windrow, is 65%, and the hay bales at 18% to 20%. This is usually between 10 am & 11 am. I then bale until the leaf shatter becomes excessive. This is somewhere around 1 pm. 
For baling near Sulfur Springs or Canton your start time will be a little later and you will be able to bale till after 3 pm maybe even 4 pm. The leaves will shatter excessively when the humidity is in the 50% range, down next to the windrow.

There is more leaf shatter with bermudagrass than there is with alfalfa. The thing is you can loose half your leaves and still have a good appearing bale, with bermudagrass, but with alfalfa you will have a bundle of sticks. It is because of leaf shatter that it pays to use net wrap for round bales on bermudagrass. That 30 seconds of spinning the bale to do the string tie shucks off a lot of leaves. 
Harvesting bermudagrass this way you will loose about 15% of your hay to respiration and leaf shatter.

This is how many put up bermudagrass here. Not all do it this way but enough to give the rest a bad reputation. 
Start mowing around noon with a 12 foot mower conditioner, and drop the hay in a windrow. Let the hay sit for three days maybe even 5 days. The day of baling pull into the field with a rake and rake two or more windrows together for baling. As soon as done raking, usually about 3 pm they bale the hay. 
The custom man gets paid by the number of bales on the ground, but his equipment runs by the hour. This system will leave 25% to 40% of the potential cured forage ether on the ground in little pieces or dissipated through respiration. The custom harvester looses income because of the fewer bales, and you as the grower loose both quantity and quality. Quality because you have fewer leaves and the stems are lower quality than the leaves. Your hay may have started out potentially as 12% CP but ended up as 9% CP hay, after baling. (Treat alfalfa this way and you are left with only stems and have lost over half of the potential volume of feed and an additional third of the potential nutritional value.)
*Been there; done that!*

I do hope the custom harvesters and farmer harvesters who do a better job than this understand this is the extreme. 
What happens is the hay does not cure down to 48% moisture by dark and the hay has respiration all through the night. This results in burning off energy.
With RB's leaf shatter can be visualized by looking where the bales were tied. There will be a nice little pile of leaves. For a square baler there will be a bigger than needed pile of leaves on the twister / knotter.


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