Hay in the northwest

Here are some pictures of my hay operation. It's a one man operation and I do around 75 acres of hay a year. We are in the Eastern part of
Washington state which offers some unique challenges putting up good hay. First cutting never wants to dry out because of ground moisture and
high humidity. Second and third you are begging for some moisture to make a decent bail of hay. We irrigate the alfalfa from wells using
canons and handlines.

Case 8840 with a 14' foot sickle header. I have used a rotary before but have decided I like the old school sickle bar because it doesn't stir
in a bunch of dirt if you have a gopher mound or two.








I merge both windrows with a New Holland 216 rake. The 1155 runs the rake really well and gives great visibility and is surprisingly
maneuverable.






The 4710 is what I bale with using a New Holland 575 baler. It's got great lights and is comfortable. Almost every bail of hay is made in the
dark. Both the baler and tractor are well lit.












I use a 1978 New Holland Super 1048 bale wagon to pick everything up. It's an oldie but a goody. If I'm patient and do a good job, it makes a
nice stack in the hay barn.

I really enjoy everyone posting pictures. Happy New Year!

Great pics Bill. And Happy New Year to you as well. Where in E Washington?

I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say how much I enjoy and appreciate pictures. I get to see things I'd never see otherwise. How can you make first in the dark when dampness is an issue? I assume first is the heaviest cutting? Here on the other end of the country, there's no such thing as baling dry hay in the dark, no matter how dry it is.

Great looking hay operation you have there and some extremely nice equipment. We put up everything including straw in the dark or the bales will pop if you do them to dry

Thanks for posting Bill. Really nice operation, beautiful farm,and beautiful country. When you sell hay do you get it out one bale at a time or retrieve it with the stacker ?

I'm with Bob in that here there is no baling after dark. Never had hay get too dry here, and sometimes it takes a week to get dry. Dew sets in at sunset and you couldn't push a square bale through a baler at that point. Would love to be able to do that. Thanks for the pics.

Thanks for sharing Bill. Beautiful operation. Is your area considered to be the Palouse?

Very nice operation. What do you do with the hay? Sell it, feed it? just wondering. Bill

Very nice looking place, and a slick operation. As others have stated, we could never dream of making dry hay after dark, even some days two hours before sunset the hay gets tough. Though I do bale a lot of silage bales after dark, as the hay isn’t dry anyway. If I run out of daylight, I just turn on the lights and keep baling till I run out of hay. And wrap it all the next day. Wrapping hay probably never would have caught on if we could make dry hay like you do.

Just curious how many bales do average per acre?

JD

First cutting alfalfa is 75-80 bales to the acre, second is around 60 and third is more like 50-55. It also depends on how old the stand is.

I have a neighbor that plants Everleaf 126 oats that I cut in the dough stage and that made 128 bales per acre.

The 575 puts out 14 x 18 bales and they can range from 68 to 95 lbs depending on moisture.

The neighbors have cows - there is another couple of hay barns on the eastern edge of the property with bunkers and it holds about 1400 bales and is set up to feed cows. The hillside in the background is fenced off for pasture. I have another neighbor that has a goat breeding operation. I just run the bale wagon to the neighbors to drop off loads at their place. We sell the rest out of the hay barn. My wife has a couple of goats and miniature donkeys so we don't need very much. Half of the total I do each year is custom work for others.

Yes - we are 20 miles north of Walla Walla WA.

First cutting has heavy stems that don't dry down that easy against wet ground. I want to see day time highs in the 80's before I start cutting hay in late May or early June. I don't want to wait too long because it'll screw up second and third cutting timing. I want the moisture to drop to below 10% in the windrow during the day and rehydrate with humidity in the overnight hours. First cutting can usually be baled between 11:00pm and 3:00am

Second cutting in July and Third in late August are probably the most challenging. It's not uncommon for us to have highs upper 90's and drop below 20 percent humidity during the day. The windrows dry to 0% and the stems are fine. When this happens you need everything the night will give you in terms of cool temps and humidity. We can cool off at night into the 50's and get up to 70% humidity in the early morning hours. I will get out at 3:30 am to start baling on second and third. If we get any wind like 8mph or more you are going to be baling dry hay. I want 18% in the bale and will push to 20% and let it drop to 12%. There are always compromises.

I use a weather station to monitor humidity and temp over night. When the hay is 0% in the windrow, you need a good 4-6 hours above 50% at night with no wind and low temps to get the moisture right. I can bale at sun up, but about an hour after the sun comes up the air starts to stir and the wind works against you.


I can access this weather station from my iPhone and keep track of time and wind speed.

For the stuff I sell out of the barn, I'm okay stacking by hand. I did buy a retriever truck to deliver hay with because I wasn't sure about the demand. But I still haven't used it yet because everyone is close by. I also have a grapple but it's not been very feasible. I'm always looking for other opportunities. We are close to the blue mountains. We are at 1260 ft elevation. In less than 10 miles you can be above 3000 in elevation. The spring rains and higher elevations are ideal for timothy hay in the mountains. I wouldn't mind having some ground up there to make some nice grass hay. But the secret to making it all work is having everything within eye shot. If I had to drag stuff all over the valley it would be too much. I have a full time day job so everything is done in short bursts. 1-4 hours at a shot.

Nice equipment, nice operation, beautiful landscape.

Know a little about your area Bill and we like it over there. Our son and his family live in WW. Nice operation you have going. Must be in the valley along Hwy12?
Dennis

Our son just moved from Wisconsin to Clarkston WA, are you near there? It's beautiful country!

Pretty sure that’s a slightly off center post sticking up through the hood on that messy 😂

Beautiful countryside, great operation, good looking hay, nice tractors. Thanks for sharing.

Yes - We are about 77 miles west of Clarkston.

Yes - We are in what's known as the Touchet Valley. The Touchet river is in the tree line in some of the pictures. We are 1 mile from Waitsburg
and about 20 from Walla Walla.