This weather has been crazy as of late.
Here in Tennessee, we have bounced between 85 and 25 degrees F in just a few days. Our triticale is well past optimum quality, and it was harvested a couple of weeks ago.
North of the Mason-Dixon line, it is quickly moving past optimum flag leaf. But farther north in New York, New England and the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota), triticale and rye are still way behind because of the cold weather.
This is good as the region just got a week of rain and cool temperatures. Those cool temperatures will continue to hold the crop at an immature stage.
What’s ideal for harvest?
Reports from New York and Vermont show that triticale and some rye fields are still immature. Heads are 6 to 8 inches down in the stem. This should hold quality for a while.
You need to visit each field and check the stage of the plants. Use your knife to split the stem to determine where the head is down in the stem. If the head is within an inch or two of emerging from the boot, and rain is in the forecast, walk away and get that later for dry cow or heifer feed. Do not try to harvest it if you have other plantings that are not that mature.
Focus on getting the dairy-quality forage in first. This is where the money is made. If the head, not the awns attached to the head, are still 2 inches down, that field is likely past prime.
Heads that are 6 inches down the stem will still be of good quality for a while. But you need to have your equipment and storage ready when it gets drier and warmer.
Tips for proper drying
Cool temperatures can be a saving grace for delayed harvest. Yields of this crop are often double to triple the normal silage yield from a heavy first-cut alfalfa crop. The problem is that it can present a real issue drying in the field. Swaths only dry on the outer three-quarters of an inch. When that dries, the next layer starts to dry.
Traditional narrow swaths, conditioned or not, will be 2 to 3 feet thick. The higher the quality (less lignin), the denser the windrow. This is not drying; it is windrow composting. It is 100% humidity inside, so it doesn’t dry. It sits wet for multiple days with natural plant respiration burning off the highly digestible sugar and starches, the milk-producing energy.
It then ensiles poorly because of lack of substrate (sugars) for ensiling bacteria to use. The outer layer is dry as baled hay and the rest is wet slop, a perfect scenario for clostridia fermentation and high butyric acid formation.
Laying the swath out at greater than 80% of the cutter bar width will expose more of the plant tissue to sunlight. Even though the plant is cut off, it is still photosynthesizing. The plant takes carbon dioxide and water to make sugars and oxygen. From cutting moisture until it gets to less than 55% moisture, there is no faster drying than photosynthetic drying.
A bonus is that instead of respiration reducing energy, the photosynthesis of the sun-exposed forage increases the net energy of lactation as the crop dries.
The other thing to remember is to not use the drop-down deflector shield on the mower to make a wider swath. My research has found that as highly digestible, low-lignin forage hits this shield, it makes non-drying lumps as it comes out the back of the mower. Again, the better the forage quality, the denser the lump. We suggest it flow through without hitting any shield.
Even laying out full-width swaths, the heavy crop will produce a mat that is 6 to 8 inches thick that only dries on the surface. After two hours of drying, the surface is too dry to photosynthesize, and the lower layers respire. Tedding during this time will bring the lower wet layers into the sunlight to photosynthetic dry. Mowing at 3 inches or more allows this process to be completed without mixing dirt into your good forage.
For those with mowers that only leave a swath that is 65% of the cutter bar width, tedding as soon as you are finished mowing will allow you to have wide swath drying. In this case, 4 to 5 dry matter ton yields (common south of New York) might need a second tedding, if originally mowed narrow. A wide swath will usually need just one tedding two hours after mowing.
Watch the forward speed of the tedder. You are spreading two to four times the yield of heavy first-cut alfalfa. If you go forward too fast, the tedder will grab and throw a compact lump of forage that will not dry.
We also suggest a homolactic bacteria, without enzymes, to preserve the forage properly. Some that are now available are designed for high-sugar wet forages that can also inhibit clostridium formation. With all the sugar and highly digestible fiber in winter forage, you don’t want to trust fermentation to whatever is present in your field.
Finally, strive for haylage in a day. Even if it is a little on the wet side, this will preserve the sugars and greatly reduce the potential for clostridia and butyric. If the night temperatures drop below 40 degrees, the cold temperatures will greatly reduce plant respiration.
Kilcer is a certified crop adviser in Rutledge, Tenn., formerly of Kinderhook, N.Y.