# deleted -



## none123none (Dec 18, 2011)

deleted -


----------



## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

You want straw then you best get into growing wheat not hay.


----------



## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

Sorry, I can't help you with growing straw. I agree with Teslan....rice might work as well. Other suggestions: 
1. Leave them all outside and invest in a chain drag, or
2. Find a lumber mill and use sawdust/shavings (invest in a manure spreader), or
3. Buy the sawdust pellets (you can also compost it)
Good luck!


----------



## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Straw is basically the residue of a small grain crop, typically wheat, though oats, barley and rye all make straw of varying qualities. Some also bale corn stalks or soybean stubble for bedding. Straw is short in some places this year and will be even shorter next year in Ohio at least.


----------



## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

See if you can get some cornstalks for bedding. Depending on location the supply is almost unlimited, therefore the price is reasonable. Around here it can be purchased in the field for about $15 per ton, or baled and delivered on your yard for about $45 per ton. I would recommend that cornstalks be shredded as part of the baling process if you are a small timer, as it makes for a much more usable end product. Also be sure that it gets baled dry.


----------



## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

I grow oats as a nurse crop for my hay plantings which yields oats and straw. Depending on where you live there may or may not be a small grain market locally. Here in NW IA you really have to work to find a market or elevator that will take anything but corn and beans. So first you need to be able to pick a small grain crop that fits your area such as oats, rice, wheat etc, and be able to sell it. Planting and growing small grains such as oats is pretty easy whether you drill it or broadcast it etc. Next you have to harvest the grain when its ripe and do it so that you have good straw. Here we swath the oats with a swather and let the plants totally dry in their swaths. The next step is to combine the swathed oats. The combine has to be setup correctly to leave the straw as large as possible. If the combine isn't setup for making straw, the straw will be chopped which causes the baling to be difficult and the straw to be of poor quality. Then all that's left is raking and baling. When net wrapping rounds I set my baler to a very high compression setting to put as much straw as possible into a bale, and wrap the bales with netting double what I normally do for alfalfa hay. You need more wraps of net to keep the bales from exploding when they are handled because they are under a lot of pressure. Even with the baler setup to make what would be a 1 ton alfalfa bale, the straw bale will usually make only about 1/3 of that weight. We set the pressure on the small square baler until the strings break when making bales, and then back off slightly on the pressure. We'll lose a few bales to breakage, but if we don't max them out it takes a mountain of bales to make a load.


----------



## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

What I would do if you do not have a way of harvesting the grain off of the wheat, oats, barley, or rye would be let it get full size and mow it just like hay with the heads still intact and let it dry thoroughly before raking and baling. I would suggest to use rye as it will generly get the tallest and produce the most volume of straw. Make sure it is rye grain or winter rye not ryegrass. Rye needs to be planted in the fall and harvested the next spring into summer. Depending on your location you may be able to plant spring wheat, spring barley, or oats in the early spring and harvest that summer. Yields for rye would be over 100 small squares an acre depending on soil fertility. I dont know what the yield would be on the spring planted crops as most everything in my location in North Carolina is fall planted.


----------



## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

FarmerCline said:


> What I would do if you do not have a way of harvesting the grain off of the wheat, oats, barley, or rye would be let it get full size and mow it just like hay with the heads still intact and let it dry thoroughly before raking and baling. I would suggest to use rye as it will generly get the tallest and produce the most volume of straw. Make sure it is rye grain or winter rye not ryegrass. Rye needs to be planted in the fall and harvested the next spring into summer. Depending on your location you may be able to plant spring wheat, spring barley, or oats in the early spring and harvest that summer. Yields for rye would be over 100 small squares an acre depending on soil fertility. I dont know what the yield would be on the spring planted crops as most everything in my location in North Carolina is fall planted.


Just be ready for a boat load of rats and mice. If you leave the grain in the straw they will come and by spring you will not have a bale left that can be moved.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Have to agree with haybaler. Last time I small squared straw it was given to me, he either had his cylinder speed too slow or his concaves weren't tight enough in six months I needed to re-bale about a third of the bales. Of course the bales were in a loft so it made a real mess. Wont bale straw anymore unless it went thru one of our rotary combines.


----------



## Rodney R (Jun 11, 2008)

Yea, if you bale straw without first running the combine (which is done with a lot of the rye around here), you have to make sure you cut the plants BEFORE they make a seed that mice will eat. We normally wait till the rye blooms, and then cut. At that point, the plant is finished adding height to the stalk, and the seeds in the head don't exist. However, rye straw isn't really abosrbant like wheat straw, and if choose a rained in wheat straw that's better yet. The problem with oat straw (I've been told), is that animals want to eat it, since it tastes like oats. Barley straw is itchy, little bales of soybean stalks are rough on pants and hands, and little bales of cornstalks are heavy. You didn't mention how much land you could use for the wheat crop, but 2 ton/acre is about the maximum for this area, they say, but if you run into any problem growing the wheat, then you should figure on less yield.

Rodney


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Again more good points. I've seen our animals eat as much of the oat straw as they laid on. Not sure why but what we call bright straw here ( has not been rained on and nice and shiny) sells better here bit if wheat straw gets rained on once it seems to make better bedding. Rains washes some of the wax off the stem or something and it makes it more absorbent. For personal use we always used to let it get a rain on it then let it dry back out before baling, if we was strictly for sale we'd bale asap to keep the bright color.


----------

