# HayMap App | Buy & Sell Hay from your iPhone



## HayMap

Hey guys-

We've launched the HayMap app and it is in the US Apple App store now (Canada & Australia April 2016)... Android Version Coming soon March-April 2016.

Using your iPhone or Android device (Coming Soon) you are able to locate hay for sale near you and view details such as photos, quantity available, price, hours of operation, read customer reviews and more.

OR

List Hay to be picked up directly from the field the day you're baling or sell your hay that is already baled and stacked in storage.

Apple App Store link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/haymap/id1071959268





You can reach us anytime at [email protected] with any feedback or ideas.

Thanks!


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## somedevildawg

Requires latest OS from Apple for those interested.....


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## HayMap

Thanks for pointing that out somedevildawg.


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## mlappin

Cute.

Most of my customers don't even have landlines though and never have.


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## HayMap

mlappin said:


> Cute.
> 
> Most of my customers don't even have landlines though and never have.


Most farmers in Africa have never had landlines and never will but they were able to take advantage of the mobile phone infrastructure and now almost every farmer there buys their seed, fertilizer and chemicals using a mobile phone and get paid for their crops at harvest with their mobile phone. I figured they would be the last ones on earth doing such things. Turns out no one ever laid a landline infrastructure because of the high cost but cell towers were put up all across the land for a fraction of the cost.


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## PaCustomBaler

Looks great, what is the price for installing the app?


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## HayMap

PaCustomBaler said:


> Looks great, what is the price for installing the app?


The app is free to download. It is free to List hay for sale. We collect a 3% fee, (Minimum $1.00, Max. $100) per listing when your hay sells through the app. Example: (1) $50 Round Bale would cost you $1.50 to sale. This helps cover the cost of running and updating the HayMap platform. We'll have a web-based version and Android version soon. Along with a Pro version coming out shortly for large producers and we can offer lower rates (2%) along with Hay Sales Market Reports, Production Reports and more features for those Pro members.


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## PaCustomBaler

Hmm ok. A little salty but maybe worth it. Any of you other guys on here use it yet with success?


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## mlappin

HayMapApp said:


> Most farmers in Africa have never had landlines and never will but they were able to take advantage of the mobile phone infrastructure and now almost every farmer there buys their seed, fertilizer and chemicals using a mobile phone and get paid for their crops at harvest with their mobile phone. I figured they would be the last ones on earth doing such things. Turns out no one ever laid a landline infrastructure because of the high cost but cell towers were put up all across the land for a fraction of the cost.


If the amish don't have landlines, cellphones won't fly either.


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## HayMap

mlappin said:


> If the amish don't have landlines, cellphones won't fly either.


You're more familiar with the way they do business but from what I understand they definitely aren't into technology. I think they aren't as ancient as some believe but they definitely keep it to a minimum. I bought a machine called the bale destroyer marketed through Messicks but if I'm not mistaken I believe it's made by some Amish folks.


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## Lewis Ranch

I signed up on their app. The only hay available is all the tractor supply stores, who would want to buy their overpriced hay?


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## HayMap

Lewis Ranch said:


> I signed up on their app. The only hay available is all the tractor supply stores, who would want to buy their overpriced hay?


Exactly. Their quality is low and price is high but we had to have some initial options for people looking for hay. Opening the app to see no hay at all is a poor experience. Us producers can offer a way better product at a lot better price. A lot of folks just don't know where we are and how much hay we have for sale, etc. It will take some time to get hay for sale from us individual producers but we have a whole lot of interest. We've got about 2,000 different farms and ranches signed up and have been out about 10 days.


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## DSLinc1017

Personally, I would rather just pay for the App outright than to have to pay a percentage.

I put way to much time and energy into my hay to have to pay a broker, or in this case a percentage. If my margins where better and perhaps if I was a large producer it might make sense.

I am often turning new customers away and If I do have a surplus come spring Craig's List is not only free but widely used as the go to place to find Hay.

I mean no offence at your product, Just telling it as it is for my uses and area.


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## HayMap

DSLinc1017 said:


> Personally, I would rather just pay for the App outright than to have to pay a percentage.
> I put way to much time and energy into my hay to have to pay a broker, or in this case a percentage. If my margins where better and perhaps if I was a large producer it might make sense.
> 
> I am often turning new customers away and If I do have a surplus come spring Craig's List is not only free but widely used as the go to place to find Hay.
> I mean no offence at your product, Just telling it as it is for my uses and area.


I understand your view. The only thing about Craigslist is that there are more scammers than legitimate sellers and literally everyone says they have the best hay and you get there and realize you just wasted a trip looking at goat hay when you were expecting horse hay. As far as the % goes we are going to drive that down as far as we can. The reason we need to charge a fee is to make sure the buyer is actually serious about buying your hay and not a competitor in the area reserving your hay just to get you off the map. (To show you as being sold out). We can possibly switch to say a flat rate fee of $5 bucks for example but if a customer is just wanting to pickup 5 or so square bales it would cost you $1.00/bale which there's no way anyone including me would pay that. But if say we charged 3% for 5 bales @$7 that would be $1.05 out of your pocket or .21 cents per bale at that price. That 3% is at the top end too. We want to get down to 2% or even 1% it just has to be enough that the buyer feels obligated to actually pickup the hay from you that he/she said they would. Our main goal is to build a network of reputations so you can know who to and who not to deal with. In long distance shipping of alfalfa for example from California, Arizona to Florida or Canada to Forida or Texas or any long distance shipments it's hard to know who you're dealing with and most sellers want money wired up front which I don't blame them but from a buyers perspective would you be willing to take a chance wiring 5-7,000 bucks to someone you don't know or have done minimal business with?


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## DSLinc1017

HayMapApp said:


> I understand your view. The only thing about Craigslist is that there are more scammers than legitimate sellers and literally everyone says they have the best hay and you get there and realize you just wasted a trip looking at goat hay when you were expecting horse hay. As far as the % goes we are going to drive that down as far as we can. The only reason we need to charge a fee of some sort is to make sure the buyer is actually serious about buying your hay and not a competitor in the area reserving your hay just to get you off the map as in being sold out. We can possibly switch to say a flat rate fee of $5 bucks for example but if a customer is just wanting to pickup 5 or so square bales it would cost you $1.00/bale which there's no way anyone including me would pay. But if say we charged 3% for 5 bales @$7 that would be $1.05 out of your pocket or .21 cents per bale at that price. That 3% is at the top end too. We want to get down to 2% or even 1% it just has to be enough that the buyer feels obligated to actually pickup the hay from you that he/she said they would. Our main goal is to build a network of reputations so you can know who to and who not to deal with. In long distance shipping of alfalfa for example from California, Arizona to Florida or Canada to Forida or Texas or any long distance shipments it's hard to know who you're dealing with and most sellers want money wired up front which I don't blame them but from a buyers perspective would you be willing to take a chance wiring 5-7,000 bucks to someone you don't know or have done minimal business with?


I'm not sure where to start with your justifications. Foremost, I don't want to get into a pissing match here. However, There are scammers everywhere. I'm not sure how you really intend to level the playing field. Some one will certainly figure out away to exploit the the system. You are contradicting your self by saying* why* you are charging these fees. Look above at this thread and your response to me. Lets be honest here, you see and opportunity to make money, and that's OK this is America. In your last statement about building a network of reputable sellers. Are you saying that you are going to insure and have money back guarantees? Or are you saying that because you are charging a percentage to keep people honest? If my local "competitor" wants to come buy my unsold hay, for the going rate that I'm selling it on the street for, then Great! In fact we all know each other around these parts and I'm the first to go to a neighbor and let them know I need to supplement my harvest to help satisfy my hard earned customers. I'm really confused.

Again don't get me wrong, However I do know a bit about business, I not only Farm but also own and run several successful business not associated with farming. Including sales, installation, rentals, national production and E-commerce. With that said, I guess I naturally have a distaste for middlemen.

To go back to my original post here. I would be much more inclined to use your product if it had a one time fee, I would even stand for some advertising on the side bar. Much like HT, that I have used for many years for free with the acceptation of the advertising.

Good luck to you.


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## HayMap

DSLinc1017 said:


> I'm not sure where to start with your justifications. Foremost, I don't want to get into a pissing match here. However, There are scammers everywhere. I'm not sure how you really intend to level the playing field. Some one will certainly figure out away to exploit the the system. You are contradicting your self by saying* why* you are charging these fees. Look above at this thread and your response to me. Lets be honest here, you see and opportunity to make money, and that's OK this is America. In your last statement about building a network of reputable sellers. Are you saying that you are going to insure and have money back guarantees? Or are you saying that because you are charging a percentage to keep people honest? If my local "competitor" wants to come buy my unsold hay, for the going rate that I'm selling it on the street for, then Great! In fact we all know each other around these parts and I'm the first to go to a neighbor and let them know I need to supplement my harvest to help satisfy my hard earned customers. I'm really confused.
> Again don't get me wrong, However I do know a bit about business, I not only Farm but also own and run several successful business not associated with farming. Including sales, installation, rentals, national production and E-commerce. With that said, I guess I naturally have a distaste for middlemen.
> To go back to my original post here. I would be much more inclined to use your product if it had a one time fee, I would even stand for some advertising on the side bar. Much like HT, that I have used for many years for free with the acceptation of the advertising.
> 
> Good luck to you.


Not trying to argue at all either. This is good input and I encourage anyone that reads this to chime in. First, the one time fee to use it wouldn't sustain building a platform of this nature unless we charged $20 or $30 bucks to download the app which, this is an assumption but no one wants to pay that kind of money for something if they don't know it will benefit them or not. We could easily do an advertising based setup and have ads all over the place but honestly no one likes ads that pop up. HayTalk does have their ads decently placed on the sidebar and such but they will redirect you to download different products when using the mobile site as I am now and it's a poor user experience. Our goal isn't to make a bunch of money but rather connect an industry based on past transactions and reviews buyers and sellers have left for each other and create a long term unified marketing channel. We ourselves bale 80-100K square bales for the horse hay market in our area and just recognize a huge problem with growers and custom balers trying to sell their hay or find hay in drought situations. What it comes down to is the more people that are on this the further we can drive costs down. I may sound contradictory in our pricing but we have different options that we can immediately pursue and we're looking for one that works for everyone which may ultimately be a subscription based fee structure of a 9.99/month or lower depending on the size of the userbase. That being said this might not be for everyone such as dairies that grow their own hay/haylage, etc. or folks that have deals with their neighbor they've been buying hay from for years.
As a sidenote: We have considered the possibility of different types of insurance but the sellers would have to be vetted and provide more detailed info about their operation. Again that would probably be more for the larger volume producers.
And we're not trying to be a middleman but rather a platform provider. I myself have a dislike for middlemen so that's not our goal here.


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## Farmerbrown2

around here we have people that I call hayjockeys they take care of the long distance transactions yes they are middle men but they have mouths to feed. What's to say you I tell you the guy bought 2 bales when he actually bought 2000 I would pay a $20 up front fee but not what you are trying . There are a lot of dishonest people in the world I wish you the best.


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## somedevildawg

I think there is some merit in the app....like others I'm a little concerned with the percentages, but I would gladly pay a salesman to sell hay for me.....if he could sell hay.....I have no problem with that. 
Where I think the problem will arise is with the money transactions, ie. How do we get paid, how do you get paid....that's kinda worrisome, don't need worrisome....
For the record, i would pay $30 or a small percentage, the $ just have to come to me, and I'll send a check, PayPal etc...the other way won't ever work for me. But I like the idea, there seems to be a problem with hooking up hay producers and hay buyers......the middleman is generally the feed store and I sell to them.....so I have to be a bit careful on locales at times, don't want to "bite the hand" so to speak


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## HayMap

Like farmer brown & somedevildawg said there are hay jockeys/brokers, whatever you want to call them. They are either charging you a % to sell your hay or buying it from you at a discounted rate. Either way it's a lot more than 3% they're making. The thing about the app is which may not be clear is the buyers pay the 3% to the app. You setup what payment methods you accept whether it's cash, check, credit card or whatever. When that buyer arrives at your barn or field he/she pays you directly. We don't handle any of your money. We do have the PayPal feature we are about to release which you would just enter your PayPal email address and if you both have a PayPal account they can just send the money directly to you. This gives you the opportunity to accept credit cards without having to have a credit card terminal or one of those things you plug in your phone or any of that. They just send you money right to your PayPal account so you would have to setup with them if you did want to accept credit cards but that is done instantly and you don't have to worry about a check bouncing. Most people spend a lot more on a credit card than they normally would. Especially if someone is waiting on a paycheck that's why they go to the feed store and buy hay there because they can just swipe it on the card. One of the cooler features we'll see start to play out when growing season kicks off is the ability to line up people to pickup out of the field the day you're baling. Example: If you normally small square 2,000 and roll up the rest (100 rolls) because you don't have either the barn space or the buyers, then you could potentially square another 2,000 or so and sell it out of the field, bringing in a WHOLE LOT more money than if you were to just roll it and sell it as rounds. There's many things we can do with this and it's not for everybody but there's a lot of people that have hay to sell and can't find buyers.
Sidenote: The brokers/hay jockeys are going to be looking all over this app for hay to buy and resale would be my guess.
Also thanks for the input!


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## PaCustomBaler

Guys, if you want to give the the app a try, simply add the 3% to your targeted price and give it a try.

I think an app like this is great for the industry. It shows a modern advancement in marketing and might be more user-friendly for customers who are on the go. On the downside, it slightly takes away the personal communication face-to-face prior to any hay sale for the customer to find out more on the hay, more so than talking on the phone or using email.

I may give it a trial on a little hay and see how it goes. Best of luck Haymap guys on the success of the app.


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## PaCustomBaler

HayMap guys, it's asking me for a confirmation code? What do I put in?


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## HayMap

PaCustomBaler said:


> Guys, if you want to give the the app a try, simply add the 3% to your targeted price and give it a try.
> I think an app like this is great for the industry. It shows a modern advancement in marketing and might be more user-friendly for customers who are on the go. On the downside, it slightly takes away the personal communication face-to-face prior to any hay sale for the customer to find out more on the hay, more so than talking on the phone or using email.
> 
> I may give it a trial on a little hay and see how it goes. Best of luck Haymap guys on the success of the app.


After you pay the deposit and "Reserve" the hay you're wanting to buy you have their full contact details. Phone, Email, Text. You will communicate directly with the buyer from that point on.


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## HayMap

PaCustomBaler said:


> HayMap guys, it's asking me for a confirmation code? What do I put in?


It sends you a text message to your phone with a 4-digit code to enter. It says it on that screen when you enter your mobile number that it is sending you a text message to the number you are providing.


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## PaCustomBaler

But I'm not listing any hay yet, just creating an account. I put in my mobile number, push continue, then it asks for a confirmation code but I never get sent a confirmation code via text....


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## HayMap

PaCustomBaler said:


> But I'm not listing any hay yet, just creating an account. I put in my mobile number, push continue, then it asks for a confirmation code but I never get sent a confirmation code via text....


You can trying tapping the resend button or entering your mobile number again but as long as it's entered correctly you will receive the text instantly.


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## SVFHAY

mlappin said:


> If the amish don't have landlines, cellphones won't fly either.


I am guessing more of your customers have cellphones than you think.


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## HayMap

Just an Update for anyone reading this and interested in what we're doing. We've began developing a web based version that will be out in about 4-5 weeks that will be accessible from any desktop computer, laptop, tablet or Mobile Browser. Basically any internet connected device. You will be able to setup your Hay Listing Details and/or Reserve Hay that is For Sale using this version without having to have the iPhone iOS app. As long as you have a cell phone of any sort that can receive a text message we can alert you when someone wants to buy the hay you're selling, how many bales/tons they want, what time they want to come or have hay delivered and how they're going to pay you. You'll have the hay buyers contact number & email at that point and can call them, text them or email them to set an appointment or delivery time or if something has come up and you won't be available during your set selling hours.


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## coloradohay

Been using Craigslist and Internet Hay Exchange for all of our sales. Both are free, and most in our area know about it. We sell everything that isn't contracted through those sites with no issues. Until the app is free, I don't understand the benefit.


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## HayMap

coloradohay said:


> Been using Craigslist and Internet Hay Exchange for all of our sales. Both are free, and most in our area know about it. We sell everything that isn't contracted through those sites with no issues. Until the app is free, I don't understand the benefit.


Some have better luck than others on Craigslist. Sounds like it's worked for you but the problems with unsecure sites like Craigslist are many. Your email and phone number are added to telemarketing and email lists. You can tell by the spam mail you start to receive after posting a listing. You never know what to expect when you arrive to pick up your hay. I've went to pickup 5' tall bales of coastal Bermuda to arrive at 4' bales of Bahia grass. It happens often. We're helping out on this by allowing buyers and sellers to review each other but also solving other problems like the ability to accept credit cards for your hay. Sell hay directly from the field when you're baling in an organized way. We are starting to advertise which will drive buyers to your listings. We keep your personal information such as your phone number, email and location secure until a buyer is serious enough about buying your hay that they'll put down a few dollars for a deposit to let you know they're not going to blow you off and keep you waiting. 
We're currently rolling out a program in a few horse markets labeled the HayMap Partner Distribution program that hooks large producers up with individuals willing to sell hay for them in areas with high concentrations of horse owners. We are working with a few FFA chapters to promote Ag Education and help young kids earn a few extra bucks and we've also started a charitable organization to raise money for areas ruled natural disasters. We aim to donate 96+% or better of any money raised. These are just a few of the things we are currently doing. We have a lot of other things we are working on such as field tracking, logging harvests and viewing historical production data.


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## deadmoose

HayMapApp said:


> We keep your personal information such as your phone number, email and location secure until a buyer is serious enough about buying your hay that they'll put down a few dollars for a deposit to let you know they're not going to blow you off and keep you waiting.


Am I reading this right? If I am a buyer, I must put $$$ down on hay before being able to contact the seller?

Good luck with that one. While your intentions may be good, it shouts SCAM from the roof of the barn.


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## deadmoose

coloradohay said:


> Been using Craigslist and Internet Hay Exchange for all of our sales. Both are free, and most in our area know about it. We sell everything that isn't contracted through those sites with no issues. Until the app is free, I don't understand the benefit.


I thought there could possibly be one before the actual benefits were explained. I do not see you missing anything.


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## HayMap

Not sure if you have an iPhone, Android or a mobile phone at all but the app is free to download and it is free to list your hay for sale. The web version of HayMap is coming out next week sometime and the same goes for it. If you're a seller it only costs if you sale your hay, 3% or lower depending on how you're signed up. If you're a buyer and you don't buy the hay you don't pay anything. We have some sellers in our test markets who either add a couple dollars per $100 of hay they list or don't mind paying a couple bucks to not have to worry about marketing and rounding up customers. HayExchange has helped us find hay as well. Good and bad, but the site hasn't been revised since 2011 and you're basically going off what the hay salesman tells you on the phone since there are no pictures, reviews or anyway to verify what you're told. It's funny how most hay I find for sale online is "Clean, Green, Weed Free, Horse Quality Hay!" We've found some good sellers and have wasted some time driving around as well. We actually used to list hay for sale on craigslist & hayexchange, etc. until we learned what screen-scraping robots are and how they collect, store and sell your information. This is where spam email, telemarketing calls and junk mail in your post box come from. People get paid to scour the web for peoples personal information all day long. These sites don't have any security measures in place to protect their users. One site that was decent we used to use was haybarn.com but it has basically turned into a drug sales listing site with all the spam ads.


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## 8350HiTech

Like others, I am at least intrigued by the concept but don't understand some of the statements made. If people are getting scammed on Craigslist, it's their own fault. They're failures at life. Craigslist scams are not exactly hard to spot. And if you don't want your phone number out there, you don't list it. (I never do) If someone can find an ad online, they can email me through the secure Craigslist system.


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## Lewis Ranch

The only thing I have found using the app is tons of TSC stores, I never realized how many they had. They can use this app as advertisement with pinpoints of their every store!


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## somedevildawg

8350HiTech said:


> Like others, I am at least intrigued by the concept but don't understand some of the statements made. If people are getting scammed on Craigslist, it's their own fault. They're failures at life. Craigslist scams are not exactly hard to spot. And if you don't want your phone number out there, you don't list it. (I never do) If someone can find an ad online, they can email me through the secure Craigslist system.


Sob Tech.....really?


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## TORCH

HayMap

I found you app and downloaded on android phone. Put two adds on for different grades of hay. Will wait and see what happens. I know this app will take some time to take off. Not much hay for sale in Wisconsin. Your web site shows the over view of sellers in the different parts of the country. That is cool!

My question to you. Do you have any plans on incorporating hay prices within this app? Showing selling prices is what I mean. This might be a starting place for trying to slow down. Folks undersell one another.

I read often about full time farmers ranting about getting under sold by hobby farmers. I fall under the hobby farmer and find I'm getting under sold by the bigger guys. If both sides could sell for the same. Than it would come down to your rating system. I think it works for Ebay and the 5 star ratings. I'm sure this was all talked about in the developing stages of haymap.

Just my two pennies.


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## HayMap

TORCH- Thanks for the input. We've thought Hay Map can eventually help level out prices when it is widely used. Maybe it can help set some standard or base price to go off of, but as we all know hay can vary widely from producer to producer. We've been working a lot on a feature lately to help sellers contact buyers who are actively searching and in need of hay in their area as well as some continuous tweaking to make everything work smoother and load faster. It's taking some time to get out but we are definitely growing. We're getting a lot more buyers signing up than sellers.


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## TORCH

I is cool to be part in the starting phases. I'm sure it will be continues updating. Good job so far everything needs to start somewhere.


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## AlfalfaExpat

I need Hay Alfalfa still. Will try it out


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## DSLinc1017

Hello All,
I know this thread is old, But was curious what ever happed with the trial runs?


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## HayMap

DSLinc1017 said:


> Hello All,
> I know this thread is old, But was curious what ever happed with the trial runs?


Everything's going well we've helped sell millions of dollars in hay over the last 2 years. Do you have an iPhone?


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## Hayjosh

mlappin said:


> If the amish don't have landlines, cellphones won't fly either.


The Amish guy who serviced my baler had a cell phone.


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## KS John

I do not find the app in google play? I am searching "HayMap" is that correct?


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