Rookie with a BHT-2

I just purchased and installed a BHT-2 on my Hesston 4590 yesterday.  Install went perfectly, sensors on the tension rails, calibrated fine with an empty bale chamber.

 

I have never used technology to test hay.  In alfalfa I use the twist test and fingernail scraping the epidermis.  When those tests were good I'd send a few through the baler and 'feel' the bales for weight and moisture.  Similar process in the grass hays.

 

I started on a piece of alfalfa.  The meter was anywhere from 15 to 22%.  The bales felt nice but showed some green stems, not heavy.  For a reality check, a friend probes a few with his brand new just purchased New Holland handheld probe and all were above 18%, some showing as high as 28%.  You could probe the same bale 6 times and get 6 different readings often with just as high of a spread.

 

Next I moved to some alfalfa/orchard mix and the BHT-2 was pretty consistently below 14% with an occasional blip to 16.5-17%.  The New Holland handheld probed these bales in the 20's just about everywhere, again with some extremes near 30%.  Experience told me the bales felt perfect and I would have slept just fine with them in my hay mow.

 

Without moisture technology, I would have baled and been happy with the hay.  With the technology, I was confused and concerned.  For those who have been running meters from some time, how do you make decisions when the meter jumps up and down 10% from one part of windrow to the next.  And do you trust the advanced metering of the BHT-2, or the 2 inch sensor on the end of a probe more?

Rookie with a BHT-2