Haying Decisions - Weather

One of the hardest parts of growing hay is making the decision about when to cut the hay.  There are a few things that I look at when making the decision.  The first is when the alfalfa is ready to cut.  Generally I try to cut my hay just as the hay is transitioning from bud to bloom.  I start looking, and feeling, the alfalfa to try to determine when it getting buds set.  By just looking at the alfalfa plant it is sometimes difficult to determine if the tips have buds or leaf clusters on them.  But if I pinch the tip of the alfalfa plant between my fingers I can feel the bud on the tips.  Once the plant has buds it will generally open the buds to flower in just a few days.  So once I know that we are at bud stage I look at the weather.  I try to make sure that I have 5 good days of weather.  I use several weather services looking at the 10 day, 7 day, and even the 30 day.  I combine the forecasts to help make the decision.  Then I decide whether I should cut everything that is ready or only take part of it.  If I take part of it I'm hedging my decision in hopes that if the weather isn't that great, I don't take a hit on the quality across the board.  Of course the longer you wait to harvest the hay past bud stage, the hay quality goes down also, so it is kind of a sliding scale.  At some point it needs to go no matter, but one thing is for sure.  Hay that is well into bloom and past its prime but is baled when it is green and without rain on it sells better than hay that was cut in its prime but got discolored from rain, so really the weather decision is everything.