An observation on leaf shatter

After harvest leaf shatter. 

 

A good 30 years ago I noted the part of the barn with alfalfa hay did not collect a thatch of bermudagrass leaves while the alfalfa storage area had very few leaf shatter on the floor.  Logical conclusion is baled bermudagrass will shatter more leaves from the bale than alfalfa.  

 

A year or so ago I woke up and noticed that my NH Hay wagon or bale wagon had the same heavier bermudagrass leaf shattering in the mechanics of picking up the hay for the barn.  Not too observant I must admit. Still then I assumed that the bale wagon did not shatter leaves.  Then I reading the leaf shattering articles they also included about a % leaf shatter loss for the automatic bale wagon.  Seeing how alfalfa being the queen of forages and bermudagrass being the ugly old goat I now must assume that more than 5% of bermudagrass leaves are lost.  I wonder how bad it really is HERE seeing how I pick up the hay and stack it in the barn AFTER baling,  At a time when the humidity is too low for baling. 

 

I have long assumed a 20% drymatter losse from standing hay to baled hay in the barn.  Maybe that is a little conservative when handling hay with a less than 40% humidity.  

 

Any thoughts? 

An observation on leaf shatter