[Shawn]

We have decided to make hayledge / hay from approximately 10 acres this year can anybody advise on the best way to utilise what is already there (best fertilisers etc) which is meadow grass as we were not planning on reseeding or is it just a none starter and is there a rough guide on how much you would get per acre??? Your help would be appreciated.

[loosey]

Is it in fairly good nick right now? Free from old toppings etc?

If it's fairly new ground I'd say get a soil test done first, where we live our soil is screaming for lime every year! Ours was done 3 weeks ago and now we've had the rain, it will be fertilised next week and we will take our first cut in June weather permitting (good luck there! ). We cut small bales or hay mostly due to storage limitations and would expect to get at least 70 big tight bales from one acre. In august/september we cut the rest of the fields for round bale hayledge (weather not so reliable!) and would normally only get 6 or 7 per acre as these fields are more recently grazed and the grass won't be as good.

Our hay is for horses. If the grass is not wuite so good in any of our fields, we have alocal farmer who pays to have it baled up for his cows and then chucks us a bit of money on top, so the fields get cut and I don't have to worry about getting rid of cattle quality hay 

[Roxy]

Oh  dear, I really must get glasses.  I read Looseys post that they had an alcoholic farmer who baled the hay.....I was just seeing a picture in my mind, or the farmer baling the hay and then chucking some money on the hay, while in a stupor!!!!

I have to be honest and say for me, fertiliser ruins the grass.  I understand why people use it, but we sold a lovely hay meadow some years ago to horsey people.  She covered it in fertiliser and now it just comes up lush green grass every year, and she now wishes she hadn't used fertiliser.

As to how many bales you get, this depends on the weather for one thing, and how well it grows.  It can look long, but once you get in to mow, its not thick grass.  Depends on what type of ground and what sort of grass it is too.  Has it been eaten off, or is it old grass in the bottom?

[Rosemary]

I'd get a soil test done - that will tell you what you need to apply by way of lime, phosphate, potassium and micronutrients. It won't tell you how much nitrogen to apply.

Nitrogen is the stuff that makes some grasses, especially the ryegrasses, grow long and lush. Good for cows and sheep, bad news for horses. If you have clover in the sward, it will fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to other plant species. If you apply bagged nitrogen to a mixed sward - ie clover and mixed plant species, this will favour the ryegrasses, which will grow well and outcompete the other species. A mixed sward is better for horses, and probably all stock, in that it tends to have different species to suit different conditions - drought, wet - and often these species will contain nutrients good for stock.

If it IS meadow grass ie grass that is in a long term ley that has been cut for hay every year, think twice before putting lots of nitrogen on it. As Roxy says, you may come to regret it.

[Moleskins]

If you can obtain some old grain from a brewery and scatter this on the field the results can be spectacular.
The grass is the same but it saves on labour as it comes up half cut.

[loosey]

Haha! I'm not convinced that wasn't the case with the cattle farmwer to be honest!!

[Shawn]

Thanks all, it has been gassed all winter and last summer by cattle and below the soil is dense chalk so think i will go for the soil samples and see what the outcome is as the hay is mainly for the horses, sheep and goats. Thanks for the advise Moleskin but want a full cut not half !!

[Sylvia]

If you can obtain some old grain from a brewery and scatter this on the field the results can be spectacular.
The grass is the same but it saves on labour as it comes up half cut.

A laugh just when I needed it