Silage cutting or lack of it!:(

Bleating Lamb

How are people faring out harvesting wise?...Silage here only due for cutting in next week or so as sheep graze meadows late in Spring.....but you wouldn't like to let a tricycle across the fields at moment,never mind a 4WD tractor!

Land saturated with heavy steeps of showers over last fortnight since our sunny spell at end of May.

Grueller

Have about 45 acres in the pit. I knocked 9 acres of glas traditional hay meadows today at dinner time. Will turn them tomorrow and Thursday and bale and wrap them then.
Also have 16 acres saved to knock next week and bale up. Land here is as dry as a bone so two consecutive dry days will be enough.

larrymiller

Knocked a few paddocks yesterday due to bale tomorrow. Shaft broke on the wilter

High bike

Only started here today sure it's only the first week in July

FarmerDougal

Our second cut won't be ready for another week to 10 days

charolais0153

All silage done. Might buy in a few bales of hay later

simx

second cut be done here around 20th july on then another 9 ac to be done again in september, was planning on cutting first cut 15th may or so but weather not playing ball to spread fert early enough

bogman_bass

12 acres of silage cut in May. 8 acres of the finest hay cut 30th of May.

12 acres of light second cut knocked today and 10 acres of heavy first cut for dry cows to be cut at the next opportunity

Reggie.

30 acres in the pit and 66 bales of haylage cut

leg wax

second cut in last night , was due last week but for weather, it was heavy 3k of slurry plus 4x 18/6/12 paid off. started to head out but what could you do,

freedominacup

leg wax wrote: »

second cut in last night , was due last week but for weather, it was heavy 3k of slurry plus 4x 18/6/12 paid off. started to head out but what could you do,

Wagon in here this morning. Going to be the worst silage made here in twenty years. Got two bouts of drought stress. Headed out badly. Should have been in last week but between the weather and how bad it was anyway we didn't push it.

ganmo

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

How are people faring out harvesting wise?...Silage here only due for cutting in next week or so as sheep graze meadows late in Spring.....but you wouldn't like to let a tricycle across the fields at moment,never mind a 4WD tractor!

Land saturated with heavy steeps of showers over last fortnight since our sunny spell at end of May.

Like yourself sheep were in the meadows in the good weather
the fields are nearly fit for cutting, the quicker the better as the deer are eating their fill :mad:

Bleating Lamb

ganmo wrote: »

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

How are people faring out harvesting wise?...Silage here only due for cutting in next week or so as sheep graze meadows late in Spring.....but you wouldn't like to let a tricycle across the fields at moment,never mind a 4WD tractor!

Land saturated with heavy steeps of showers over last fortnight since our sunny spell at end of May.

Like yourself sheep were in the meadows in the good weather
the fields are nearly fit for cutting, the quicker the better as the deer are eating their fill :mad:

That's annoying re Deer,trouble here is meadows are bottoms,consistent rain here again this morning....no point in trying it until at least a few days soakage/drying comes (if it does!)

_Brian

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

That's annoying re Deer,trouble here is meadows are bottoms,consistent rain here again this morning....no point in trying it until at least a few days soakage/drying comes (if it does!)

Neighbour pulled out of his meadows last week as it just too soft under. About 10-12 acres to be done, heavy and lying all over. Very hard to get ground dried now with heavy crops, no sign of a take up on weather either, bad luck to see stuff getting worse and can't be naked.

Kovu

_Brian wrote: »

Neighbour pulled out of his meadows last week as it just too soft under. About 10-12 acres to be done, heavy and lying all over. Very hard to get ground dried now with heavy crops, no sign of a take up on weather either, bad luck to see stuff getting worse and can't be naked.

You do whatever you want in your meadows Brian :pac:

Walked a couple of the higher and drier meadows today. Might chance cutting those tomorrow if we can get a dryish day or two

_Brian

Kovu wrote: »

You do whatever you want in your meadows Brian :pac:

Walked a couple of the higher and drier meadows today. Might chance cutting those tomorrow if we can get a dryish day or two

I could say it was autocorrect... but ye probably wouldnt believe me

Sam Kade

_Brian wrote: »

Neighbour pulled out of his meadows last week as it just too soft under. About 10-12 acres to be done, heavy and lying all over. Very hard to get ground dried now with heavy crops, no sign of a take up on weather either, bad luck to see stuff getting worse and can't be naked.

It must be pure misery farming land like that.

CloughCasey1

Sam Kade wrote: »

It must be pure misery farming land like that.

Still turn an artic with 25tonne on board here😆

Sam Kade

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

Still turn an artic with 25tonne on board here😆

Same here down in the tropics of cork.

_Brian

Sam Kade wrote: »

It must be pure misery farming land like that.

There's a silver lining, it never scorches in hot weather (from what I remember from the 70's anyway)

Sam Kade

_Brian wrote: »

There's a silver lining, it never scorches in hot weather (from what I remember from the 70's anyway)

Not much hot weather nowadays My land is not too wet or too dry, always grass whateverthe weather

eddiek

a number of lads around here are mowing and baling a few hours later because 2 dry days together is proving very hard to get. thinking of this option ourselves but crop is heavy at this stage . hard to know what to do

Reggie.

eddiek wrote: »

a number of lads around here are mowing and baling a few hours later because 2 dry days together is proving very hard to get. thinking of this option ourselves but crop is heavy at this stage . hard to know what to do

Helped a neighbour yesterday and the grass was down two days with no rain but the bales were still damp and weighed at least a ton each easy.

High bike

Reggie. wrote: »

Helped a neighbour yesterday and the grass was down two days with no rain but the bales were still damp and weighed at least a ton each easy.

you want to watch your back lifting them Reg:o

_Brian

With a small farmer yesterday, knocked 6acres that was ready to cut a month ago when weather broke, waited and waited but ground only getting worse.

All seeded out, yellow at the but, ground desperate wet under. Says it's the worst silage made since 1986, even 2009/12 he managed better stuff.

CloughCasey1

Seen this contraption on my travels yesterday.

visatorro

_Brian wrote: »

With a small farmer yesterday, knocked 6acres that was ready to cut a month ago when weather broke, waited and waited but ground only getting worse.

All seeded out, yellow at the but, ground desperate wet under. Says it's the worst silage made since 1986, even 2009/12 he managed better stuff.

There's a few old timers round here still waiting for a chance to make hay. Few crops lodged on the ground this month. I know it's cheaper to make but they'r only kidding themselves now at this stage

mahoney_j

visatorro wrote: »

There's a few old timers round here still waiting for a chance to make hay. Few crops lodged on the ground this month. I know it's cheaper to make but they'r only kidding themselves now at this stage

Cheaper make hay ????.after all the diesel burnt turning it .only stock I used feed hay to here was calves ,moved away from it and now feed good ostensibly straw .

whelan2

mahoney_j wrote: »

Cheaper make hay ????.after all the diesel burnt turning it .only stock I used feed hay to here was calves ,moved away from it and now feed good ostensibly straw .

I would be of the opinion its cheaper to buy in hay than make it, hay=hardship

mahoney_j

whelan2 wrote: »

I would be of the opinion its cheaper to buy in hay than make it, hay=hardship

Extremely hard get good quality hay tho.its a bit of an art in making it ,lots of lads bale too early or leave crop go to far

Reggie.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Extremely hard get good quality hay tho.its a bit of an art in making it ,lots of lads bale too early or leave crop go to far

Stop giving out ye two :P

Bleating Lamb

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

How are people faring out harvesting wise?...Silage here only due for cutting in next week or so as sheep graze meadows late in Spring.....but you wouldn't like to let a tricycle across the fields at moment,never mind a 4WD tractor!

Land saturated with heavy steeps of showers over last fortnight since our sunny spell at end of May.

My land is actually wetter now (North Leitrim),than when I started the thread:(.
On my travels up this neck of woods have seen people make silage on reasonable land and leave deep ruts/tracks in fields,would mainly be round balers.
Personally think even though quality of crop worsening it's better wait for a pick up in weather than destroy the land and make expensive bales with lumps of clay in them.

C0N0R

The problem arises when the weather doesn't break, do you make wet reasonable stuff now and do a bit of damage or make wet rubbish in two weeks and make a bigger mess.

RedPeppers

Thinking of knocking grass this afternoon for second cut of silage looks good quality stuff now for cutting. My problem is the fertilizer was spread 17th June just over 2 bags of 23-2.5-5+s per acre. A week before this it got a good coating of slurry. Am I too soon cutting with the nitrogen?I reckon should just be OK, its ryegrass. Ideally Don't want to leave it as quality will plummet. Only next day or two promised dry here rain thereafter

patsy_mccabe

In the last wet summer we got, I waited and waited and the break never came. Must have gone a month over. Had to listen to s few arse****s then tell me I should have made it weeks ago. Lesson learned though, Cut and bale quick when there is no other option.

Muckit

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

In the last wet summer we got, I waited and waited and the break never came. Must have gone a month over. Had to listen to s few arse****s then tell me I should have made it weeks ago. Lesson learned though, Cut and bale quick when there is no other option.

Everyone is an expert in hindsight. If you baled it quick they'd be sayin you shouldn't have paniced, sure what was your hurry?! Feckin know it alls!!

freedominacup

RedPeppers wrote: »

Thinking of knocking grass this afternoon for second cut of silage looks good quality stuff now for cutting. My problem is the fertilizer was spread 17th June just over 2 bags of 23-2.5-5+s per acre. A week before this it got a good coating of slurry. Am I too soon cutting with the nitrogen?I reckon should just be OK, its ryegrass. Ideally Don't want to leave it as quality will plummet. Only next day or two promised dry here rain thereafter

I used agrikings innoculant on first cut with high N this year. Preservation looked perfect when we opened pit to put in second cut. We hadn't put anything on silage for years but I couldn't risk it with that cut as n was too high.

Kovu

Got over sixty bales last week, not too much mucking done but stuff was wet.
Dropped two meadows today, will do three more tomorrow, then have one meadow that got no fert so we can leave that a while, see if we can get august hay.

I don't know what we'll do with all the bales.....we only need about 100 and have 19 left over from last year :pac:

trixi2011

Well.theres finnaly a break in the weather here but no contractors availible such a disaster of a year for second cut. All grass headed now and starting to lodge will only be fit 4 drycows

Reggie.

trixi2011 wrote: »

Well.theres finnaly a break in the weather here but no contractors availible such a disaster of a year for second cut. All grass headed now and starting to lodge will only be fit 4 drycows

That's always the way.

Bleating Lamb

Got meadow mowed this afternoon,ground just about trafficable but had soaked a lot since Saturday.All going well Round Baler will be here around midday tomorrow.Nothing only tractors flying around fields because there is no long term spell of weather on the horizon....just these few days.

Reggie.

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Got meadow mowed this afternoon,ground just about trafficable but had soaked a lot since Saturday.All going well Round Baler will be here around midday tomorrow.Nothing only tractors flying around fields because there is no long term spell of weather on the horizon....just these few days.

Same around here. Some diesel being burned

Bleating Lamb

Reggie. wrote: »

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Got meadow mowed this afternoon,ground just about trafficable but had soaked a lot since Saturday.All going well Round Baler will be here around midday tomorrow.Nothing only tractors flying around fields because there is no long term spell of weather on the horizon....just these few days.

Same around here. Some diesel being burned

It's not exactly on topic but is there much into uploading a photo here off an iPhone?....feel free if anyone wants to talk me through it:)

Kovu

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

It's not exactly on topic but is there much into uploading a photo here off an iPhone?....feel free if anyone wants to talk me through it:)

Sacrifice your first born bull to the mods. Tis the only way.

(I have no idea off an iphone but there should be an attachment link below the box where you enter text to post)

Bleating Lamb

Thanks Kovu but it's only the reply box that comes up and a 'Submit Reply' box below the box.Its an IPhone 5 I have.

Kovu

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Thanks Kovu but it's only the reply box that comes up and a 'Submit Reply' box below the box.Its an IPhone 5 I have.

This is what shows up when I go to reply to a comment. I just assumed it was the same on all phones. The "attach files" link used to disappear every so often on me though. I'd have to close the browser and try again.

Bleating Lamb

Yeah....I think my phone may be acting up as am sure I used to see it as you sent there in screenshot, as a neighbour says 'how and ever' saving the silage tomorrow is a bigger priority than sorting the phone:).....thanks for replying Kovu.

OverRide

The attach option is gone for me too in the touch version
Comes back the odd time
Bloody nuisance

Owners of the site want rid of the touch version so this is going to keep happening
They want us all on that pig of an app

CHOPS01

Drawing bales by moonlight last night and by sunrise this morning. Off to work now.
Know where I'd rather be

ganmo

CHOPS01 wrote: »

Drawing bales by moonlight last night and by sunrise this morning. Off to work now.
Know where I'd rather be

The beach!

blue5000

CHOPS01 wrote: »

Drawing bales by moonlight last night and by sunrise this morning. Off to work now.
Know where I'd rather be

Me too, early start this morning.