Conditioning vs Straight Cut and Tedding

Was on a trip this weekend and stopped in at an ag dealer who sells Krone disc mowers and picked up a brochure. On thing I'll say about Krone literature is it is many pages and thorough - hopefully their mowers are as well done.

Krone makes a 3pt mounted disc mower with and without a conditioner. Never seen a conditioner on a 3pt mounted disc mower. IMHO for the tractor(s) we have a 3pt moco is a bit of a stretch. However, I really like the Krone EasyCut 280 as a straight cut disc mower. I like the all gear drive, the shear mechanism via roll pins on the cutters and the ability to park the machine with the disc mowing bar in the vertical position (read space saving in the barn).

But to get back on topic on my own post....

Am I loosing a day with no drying time without conditioning or can I make up for this with more frequent tedding? I cut two of my fields for the 2nd cutting at the same time. Beautiful hay, weed free, good color. We baled the fields one day apart. Started baling the first field at 17-18% moisture from several samples. Out of maybe 200, maybe 20 had a bit of dust. The field baled the next day was dust free. All the dusty bales were in the same place in the stack, so I'm thinking we just hit a windrow with a bit higher moisture in that part of the field. But I want dry/dust free hay!

Running a sickle mower right now and thinking from a conditioning standpoint, I ain't gaining anything by going to a straight disc mower. I'm reluctant to go pull behind discbine or haybine as we have some obstacles in our fields and the breakaway features of a 3pt mounted disc mower are appealing -just like with my sickle mower.

So as we plot the path forward, it is very likely a 3pt mounted disc mower will be what we would buy.

Question is - can we make up for the lack of conditioning with more frequent tedding? Presently orchard grass mix, soon to be timothy and some teff next year. One of these days, maybe a bit of alfalfa.

Any sage advice is much appreciated.

ps - anyone running one of these 3pt mounted Krone EastCut 280 mowers with the roll pin type shear protection vs the AM? Opinions/experiences with it?

Thanks!
Bill

Conditioning vs Straight Cut and Tedding