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[Bentley]

Saw them cutting the Barley for silage(?) and figured hey, some Members might enjoy seeing that!  It is rough, like all my video, and the sound quality is horrible in places, but you get the drift.  It is about 3 minutes.  Also, at the end, a brief over view of preparation for our garden planting season!

Will be curious if they wind row this stuff, or just bale it tomorrow?  I guess we shall see, and I will try and take some video of that too! 

If anyone has any pictures or video related to Ag or you see any good videos online, please share in this thread!

2019 Barley Cover Crop Being Cut

[Bentley]

What it looks like after the cut.  They will collect this, then spray to kill the barley, then plant soybeans!

After the Cut

[SmokinHandyman]

Barley for beer

[ICIdaho]

Wow, you do things different in your parts.  We harvest barley in middle to late summer after it has turned yellow.  We use a combine that collects the grain and shoots the chaff out the back.  I would have thought you were knocking alfalfa down for hay based on the technique being used.

[Hank D Thoreau]

Barley for beer

More likely barley for Campbell's Vegetable Beef soup.

[Bobitis]

I don't get it.... 2 months ago, you had freezing weather. Now it's harvest time? 

[Kristin Meredith]

Wow, you do things different in your parts.  We harvest barley in middle to late summer after it has turned yellow.  We use a combine that collects the grain and shoots the chaff out the back.  I would have thought you were knocking alfalfa down for hay based on the technique being used.

This barley is not being harvested for the grain, it is being harvested to turn into silage to feed cattle and dairy cows.  So they need it green with some moisture.

[Bobitis]

Wow, you do things different in your parts.  We harvest barley in middle to late summer after it has turned yellow.  We use a combine that collects the grain and shoots the chaff out the back.  I would have thought you were knocking alfalfa down for hay based on the technique being used.

This barley is not being harvested for the grain, it is being harvested to turn into silage to feed cattle and dairy cows.  So they need it green with some moisture.

Still... how does it grow so fast?  Freezing to thaw in the PNW doesn't grow anything. 

[Bar-B-Lew]

I spent the last week in the Mississippi Delta.  They are so under water (so parts in South Delta much worse) that they have yet to plant anything.  Some soybeans have been planted but will need to be replanted.  3 inches of rain on Saturday and another inch forecasted for Thursday.  No telling when they will be able to start planting cotton.  I think the Midwest Iowa, Nebraska, and maybe some other states are still under water too.  Going to be a rough year for farmers in a lot of the USA this year.

[Bentley]

Not sure if lawn grass grows year round where you live, if it does, this might be harder to visualize. 

So the corn was harvested last October, and just a few days after that, this barley was planted.  It germinated and grew to a height of about 3 inches before the cold set in and it went dormant, much like a bluegrass or fescue lawn grass will do in a cold climate.  March rolls around, and about mid march, it starts to grow, slowly but it grows (much like my lawn).  The last 3 weeks have been pretty good growing conditions and it grew to the height you saw, and the grain stalk was just starting to mature. 

You have to realize this is planted primarily for soil retention.  Usually the county, state or feds will pay for the seed, so most farmers will take advantage of it.  Its use as a feed is secondary, as it has a much lower calorie content then crops grown for that purpose.  As stated, it is much closer to hay then grain!   


Just to give you an idea, here is a shot of the size of the barley a month ago, the field behind the wood rounds...

Wow, you do things different in your parts.  We harvest barley in middle to late summer after it has turned yellow.  We use a combine that collects the grain and shoots the chaff out the back.  I would have thought you were knocking alfalfa down for hay based on the technique being used.

This barley is not being harvested for the grain, it is being harvested to turn into silage to feed cattle and dairy cows.  So they need it green with some moisture.

Still... how does it grow so fast?  Freezing to thaw in the PNW doesn't grow anything. 

[Bentley]

This is the term used to gather "grasses" for baling, whether bales or in this case, rounds.  I think the device is just called a hay rake, but I maybe wrong on that!  Will show the baler in action this afternoon!

Windrowing the Barley

[Bentley]

They expect about an inch of rain Friday, so they quit cutting yesterday and concentrated on windrowing, baling and picking up today!

Baling Barley

[MN-Smoker]

In the video, the cut barley didn't seem to lie in windrows like you would get with most haybines.

With alfalfa by us, you have more defined rows and if lucky, you may not have to rake it at all before bailing / chopping.  Idea is each time you turn it you lose more leaves off the alfalfa which is where the highest amount of protein is in the plant.

[Bentley]

Next time they are wind rowing, I will see if I can take the drone up and show some video.

[Bentley]

Sorry, no more wind rowing, they are chopping the remaining barley and are truly using it for silage, and not for bales.  I shot some drone video of it, it is about 3 1/2 minutes long.  All the fields you see around the cutting have been sprayed and seeded with soy beans.  The big black thing at th end of the video is a seed container that blows seed into seeder for refills.

Barley Chopping for Silage