how long have you found the cropsaver preservative work?

I need your experence on how long you have found the preservative works.  On the net I have found some people say only 10 days and others say 4 to 6 months.  I live in an area where drying is always a problem with low temperature and high RH.

 

here is what I have.  7 acre field that had to be baled with most of the hay in the 20% and some slugs at 30%.  I baled with about a gal to the ton.  I spread the bales single layer and have a fan blowing cool air over the bales.  That was two weeks ago and I check every bales for heat and have found about 10% of the bales heating and removed them. The rest have stayed at about 60 degrees and no sign of heating or mold.  The temperature is in my favor the the rH is always high so not much drying is happening .  I have sold about 30 bales to 3 different people and no problems. they say their animals like it. The question is how long can the Crop saver last?  I'd like to hear your experiences That you may have had.  Thanks.

how long have you found the cropsaver preservative work?

Windrow Width

I'm setting up a new V rake, What windrow width do u'll use on a 48 inch wide baler with gathering or hay saver wheels, (Vermeer N roller)

Thanks in advance,

BillyBob

Windrow Width

Cup holder excessory

When I go out to work in my 1100C I like to take a bottled water. Problem is, it doesn't stay cold very long. So I had an extra 20 oz. YETI cup and put it in the cup holder with a little plastic shim to hold in place. And it worked. It keeps it colder much longer. It also will hold a cool one. :tiphat:

Attached Images

20 oz. YETI cup keeps water bottle cold..jpg (40.2 KB)

Cup holder excessory

Hand held PH testers

Does anyone have any experience and recommendations for a handheld soil ph tester?  Would also like to hear how you spread your lime.  I think I'm plagued with low ph on all my fields and am beginning to understand the importance of proper ph and nutrient uptake.  Comments and suggestions appreciated.

Hand held PH testers

Vermeer t-250 tedder

Ran a log thru the tedder broke teeth and sheered the drive pins on one rotor gear box, dealer fixed it $1000 bucks. we tedded about 50 acres since we got it back. Today tedding some heavy hay started to plug  so I raised the rotor and it worked fine until all at once teeth went flying and everything stopped. Found the 2 center rotors gear box bolts sheered off and 8 teeth missing found them all within 10' of where it stopped. The weird part is there was nothing but hay no stump rock or even a tree branch.Took it back to the dealer they will look at it Monday. Anybody have an idea what could have happened.  

Vermeer t-250 tedder

School Me On Iron

I've got a customer with an IR horse and wants hay with low ESC + starch. That I get. However, they were interested in iron levels too in ppm.

Question is - what drives iron levels in hay? Soil, hay variety, something else? Our Timothy is low in iron. I saw a hay analysys for orchard grass and it was very high - I can't explain.

What is the driver for iron levels in hay?

Thanks,
Bill

School Me On Iron

I tried to quit, I promise.

We backed off on the custom work with the intent to just stack small square this year.
Our biggest customer called wanting us to stack some grass hay. It had been out up by another local custom guy. When I went over to look at it, and I am serious, the bales ranged from 38 to 49 inches. I also noticed a few bales were seven flakes and most were eight flakes. My wagon won't stack those.
He currently, as I type this, has four high school kids out there picking hay, about 1800 bales I would guess. Ouch. The young men are getting a dollar a Bale picked up hailed and stacked.
Anyway, the first thing I noticed was a rake in one corner of a big Alfalfa field and a very broken swather in a different corner. It looks to have died a horrible death. At this point I was guessing the other fella was just about out of business. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know what was coming next.
Even though I said I wasn't, I just did. Overall, I had to tune up my old swather a bit, but it ran well and the hay is on the ground.

I tried to quit, I promise.