Night Rows

Clever Dic

Member
Location
Melton
It's hard to spread after you row it with a big Rake
A lot of large tedder manufacturers often offer as an extra a night row gearbox ,this reduces the rotor speed hugely so that your 10m tedder now makes 5 small rows..
Actually done it but if you have 250 acres on the ground it is just not practicle to be spreading that amount a day and then row it up again.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
It's the proper way to make it.

If you get out of the cab and actually feel the ground/rows you'd realise that.

When we used the haybob I'd always move rows across and spread in morning. Row up in the evening. Haybobs aren't that good at moving it across though.

Now with the Stabilo, spread when the dews up, row up in evening. It's as much about drying the ground underneath as drying the hay.

Often I have arrived to bale hay for customers and it's crisp on top but wet underneath. They have just gone through the motions, not thought about what they are trying to achieve.

Modern tedding machinery doesn't really help. The old wuffler and turner was ideal for inverting the swath and moving the row across then the wuffler got some air in it.

The right technique can double the speed of drying easily dried grasses but ryegrass just needs a lot of time anyway as its slow to release the moisture.

With wrapping, the art of tedding has been lost. It doesn't matter if you are an any good at it or not other than being able to produce the correct sort of windrow for the baler. Many can't even do that, being unaware of how to set the tines and doors to give the baler man a chance of producing an even bale.
 

Simon Chiles

DD Moderator
It's the proper way to make it.

If you get out of the cab and actually feel the ground/rows you'd realise that.

When we used the haybob I'd always move rows across and spread in morning. Row up in the evening. Haybobs aren't that good at moving it across though.

Now with the Stabilo, spread when the dews up, row up in evening. It's as much about drying the ground underneath as drying the hay.

Often I have arrived to bale hay for customers and it's crisp on top but wet underneath. They have just gone through the motions, not thought about what they are trying to achieve.

Modern tedding machinery doesn't really help. The old wuffler and turner was ideal for inverting the swath and moving the row across then the wuffler got some air in it.

The right technique can double the speed of drying easily dried grasses but ryegrass just needs a lot of time anyway as its slow to release the moisture.

With wrapping, the art of tedding has been lost. It doesn't matter if you are an any good at it or not other than being able to produce the correct sort of windrow for the baler. Many can't even do that, being unaware of how to set the tines and doors to give the baler man a chance of producing an even bale.

This ^^^ pretty well sums it up, especially the going through the motions rather than thinking about what you’re doing bit. We didn’t do night rows last year, the ground was so dry there was no need, and most of our hay was baled within 24-48 hrs of mowing. This year, certainly at the start we’ll use night rows to allow the ground to dry and restrict the amount of grass that gets wet overnight with the dew.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Slightly off topic.....I got into the habit of tedding 2, or even 3 times a day when the weather was right. But is it better to let the top layer dry thoroughly and just ted once per day ?
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
When we used to make a lot of hay 2-300 acres it was never allowed to be on the ground for long before the next movement 3-4 times a day often. Always tried to row it at night and letting the ground dry out was as important as the hay. The problem we had in the 60-70s was the tedders could not separate too big a row so at the most it would only go into a ten foot row.
Most of the time, we would retain it in in the 5 feet swaths left by the cutterbar mower and moved to fresh land using a Bamford siderake in twin rows then using twin row cock pheasant style machines to fluff it up.
Rowing up for baling was normally done by putting two swaths togather with the tedder as it generated a far better swath for the baler
 

Simon Chiles

DD Moderator
Slightly off topic.....I got into the habit of tedding 2, or even 3 times a day when the weather was right. But is it better to let the top layer dry thoroughly and just ted once per day ?

No. You’ve got two choices, you can slash it down, turn it once a day and bale it in a week or so or you can turn it straight behind the mower then turn it another three times a day and bale it in 48 hrs. Both take the same number of times to turn but the latter is a) less risky and b) results in a better product.
 

ih1455xl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
northampton
Is yours a standard lotus or a lotus combi? I can only move the tines on one rotor of my lotus but I might modify it if it would make night/wet day rows
Used to have the combi now just standard 6m lotus tines can move on all 4 rotors is that the same on the bigger ones
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
No. You’ve got two choices, you can slash it down, turn it once a day and bale it in a week or so or you can turn it straight behind the mower then turn it another three times a day and bale it in 48 hrs. Both take the same number of times to turn but the latter is a) less risky and b) results in a better product.
When I went to college, they told us turning and tedding were bad as you lost leaf..
When I got home , I brought a forage harvester, s*d handling all those damn bales!;)
 

Pan mixer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Colchester
Tedding in the heat of the day has to be done very slowly otherwise all the leaves smash.

By the time you get a ryegrass ley ready to bale for hay most of the leaves have gone anyway. My current ryegrass been down 9 days and not ready, just going to put it into night rows ahead of the predicted biblical floods.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
When I went to college, they told us turning and tedding were bad as you lost leaf..
When I got home , I brought a forage harvester, s*d handling all those damn bales!;)

I don’t get the British fascination with hay, fair enough if you had a fantastic hot climate but you don’t most years. Seems a waste of ground too. How many tons of DM per hectare would an average run hay paddock produce per year?
If it’s shut up in April but not cut until August, it’s not been very productive has it?
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
I don’t get the British fascination with hay, fair enough if you had a fantastic hot climate but you don’t most years. Seems a waste of ground too. How many tons of DM per hectare would an average run hay paddock produce per year?
If it’s shut up in April but not cut until August, it’s not been very productive has it?
Why would you shut it up in April to cut in Aug?
I shut up in May to cut mid june/ early july
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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