From field to bale: Saving every nutrient

Is your hayfield ready — or are you risking a nutrient disaster?  

In this episode of The Bovine podcast, host Kara Mastel dives into the delicate art and science of haying under tough conditions with expert ruminant nutritionist Brianna Sentes from Beef Smart.  

They unpack when to cut for maximum protein and digestibility, how weather forecasts can help (or mislead) your timing, why cutting height matters for regrowth, and how to protect hay from mold and nutrient loss.  

Listen For:

4:39 What Is NDF? And Why Should You Care?
7:30 Haying in a Drought: Cut or Wait?
11:08 Research Insights: How Cutting Height Affects Regrowth
14:23 Tricks to Speed Up Dry Down
25:10 Bale Size and Density: Surprising Impacts on Loss
26:23 How to Avoid Hay Heating and Nutrient Burnoff
 

GUEST: Breanna Sentes, Beef Smart

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CONNECT WITH HOST: KARA MASTEL 

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Chapters

• 4:39 What Is NDF? And Why Should You Care?
• 7:30 Haying in a Drought: Cut or Wait?
• 11:08 How Cutting Height Affects Regrowth
• 14:23 Tricks to Speed Up Dry Down
• 25:10 Bale Size and Density: Surprising Impacts on Loss
• 26:23 How to Avoid Hay Heating and Nutrient Burnoff

Transcript

Kara Mastel (00:05):

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Bovine podcast, brought to you by Alberta Beef Producers. I'm your host, Kara Mastel and as always, I'm happy to be here. Today we're tackling a very crucial topic for this time of the year, maximizing hay quality through drought or untimely rain. So from timing your cut to managing moisture and storage, today we're going to cover the key decisions that can make or break your hay season. Some of the topics we're going to cover today include the best time to cut for nutrient retention, how weather forecast should or maybe sometimes shouldn't, guide your timing, adjusting, cutting height for regrowth and yield and so much more. Joining us is Brianna Sentes who is a consulting ruminant nutritionist with Beef Smart. She was raised on a cow calf operation in Manitoba. Brianna holds a BSA and MSC from the University of Saskatchewan where she focused on extensive corn grazing. Since 2018, she's worked closely with beef producers across the prairies, helping them navigate the challenges of forge and feed management. She now lives near Raymore Saskatchewan with her young family. Brianna, thanks for joining us on the Bovine. How's it going? It's

Breanna Sentes (01:20):

Going well, thank you.

Kara Mastel (01:21):

Okay. So yes, tricky time of the year with haying season well underway across the prairies. We know it's hard to compare a parcel of land even to your neighbors down the road, let alone across the prairies or the country, but there's some things you're going to want to keep in mind during adverse conditions. Let's maybe start there.

Breanna Sentes (01:40):

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm located here in Saskatchewan, but we're definitely seeing that as well, where some people are getting frustrated with the odd rain that's slow things down for them. And of course the rain came too late to affect the yield, but now it's really slowing down harvest, whereas we have other parts where they're just not cutting the hay because it's been so dry that it's just not salvageable. So absolutely, there's lots of things to take into consideration when deciding when to hay and how to get it done efficiently.

Kara Mastel (02:11):

So if you're looking at optimal, I mean it's never going to happen that you have a hundred percent best conditions, but when is the optimal time to cut hay to ensure maximum nutrient retention?

Breanna Sentes (02:23):

Absolutely. So I guess it really depends on the type of hay that you're cutting, right? With both types of hay, the more you let it mature, the more yield you're going to get, right? So we've all seen those grabs where over time the quality declines and the yield increases. Do you want to hit somewhere where the two intersect and create the X where you're getting an ideal yield while taking into consideration quality? And I think it's important to note what are your goals with that crop? Do you need a really high protein hay to feed to your yum stock or are you looking for just dry matter to keep your cows through the winter? So that's always a consideration when deciding when to cut the hay for both your legumes or your grass species. The ideal timing is somewhere between vegetative and reproductive stage. So whether you're getting that grass as it's in the boot stage or the alfalfa in the bud to early bloom stays, that's where you're going to get a good intersection of yield and quality.

(03:23):

A lot of people want to wait until their grasses, their alfalfa are 50% bloom, and yes, you're going to get a lot more yield, but I'm going to tell you the NDF on those just skyrockets. It's a lot less digestible, less energy. Some of these grass hays that we test would look a lot more like a barley straw if you compare just based on the feed value that they have. So it's definitely taking into consideration who you're feeding it to in the end, but know that the longer you let it mature, the less digestible it's going to be, the less protein, the less sugar's available. So it's kind of finding that sweet spot. And I think given the year, some of these areas, like you said in Alberta are getting a lot of rain, you also have to be keeping an eye on the forecast and be keeping an eye on how many acres you have to cover. So maybe you start some of your alfalfa in the bud stage before it even starts to bloom, knowing that by the time you get to the end of your hang cycle, someone that's going to be very mature. So there's a lot of considerations that go into when to pull the dick vine or hay by into the field.

Kara Mastel (04:33):

And now you mentioned NDFs. Do you want to step back and take and talk a bit about what they are?

Breanna Sentes (04:39):

Yeah, for sure. So NDF is neutral detergent fiber. You have a DF acid detergent fiber and you have lignin. And these are all tests that show up on your fee test and they just reflect the think of the crop. The beauty with the ruminant is that they can utilize a bit of the A DF and the NDF lignin is going to come out in their manure, but these are just quick ones that we look at and they indicate how digestible that fiber is. So as those proportions increase, the digestibility decreases. And so the main one NDF that we look at, inverse relationship with how much a cow can eat. So as the NDF increases, she can eat less and less. So we're always keeping an eye on the total NDF of the diet. And it's just like I said, it's a really good indicator of overall digestibility of the forages and one of those things that will climb or will increase as the forage becomes more mature. So just something to keep an eye on

Kara Mastel (05:39):

And I mean, it's really hard to look and say, okay, I'm definitely trusting the weather forecast. We know that can change immediately, but absolutely how much does one pay attention to that when deciding when to cut? And if it looks like it's right to cut today, do I go even if there is rain few days in the forecast?

Breanna Sentes (05:58):

Right? And I think that will really depend on your region. So some areas where you're fighting high humidity where it's hard to get anything dry, it needs four to five days to dry, though people are going to watch the forecast a lot more tightly than places like Southern Saskatchewan for example. If they get a good drying day, low humidity, they could be raking and bailing it within 24 hours. So I think you take that into consideration what kind of drying conditions or what kind of turnaround you can get on your hay crop to cut only what's reasonable for you to bail in a day, right? So rather than cutting five days worth of bailing, let's go out and cut one day worth of bailing and then tomorrow go cut some more and the next day go cut some more. Keep an eye on that forecast, but hopefully you don't have five days worth of bailing get rained on, you only have one or two. And then of course, if you're watching the forecast, if it is truly raining regularly, if there's some moisture in the environment and you're starting to trust the weatherman a little bit more, maybe that's time to consider switching gears and thinking about saging the next field that you're going to cut just because you can get it turned around a lot faster and maybe preserve some of that quality.

Kara Mastel (07:18):

And now what about in the areas that are, I mean they're drought stricken and it's very hard to even get a rain. Is it worth maybe taking it off a bit early or do you lose a lot of nutrients in that way?

Breanna Sentes (07:30):

So I guess in a drought scenario where the forage is showing signs or symptoms that it is dying off and not progressing, you're better off just to take what you can rather than hoping on a prayer that it's going to start growing again. And there are indicators, right? If at the cereal or a forage crop or perennial forage crop, there's indicators like the yellow wing leaves at the base, christening off leaves, that that combined with no soil moisture are pretty good indicators that that crop is shutting down and you're not going to get any more yield out of it. So it's better off just to cut and bail what you can. Maybe in some scenarios there's not enough of a slot there to run a baler over, so you start considering engraving what you can and sometimes those are hard decisions to make, but you also have to think of the longevity of that hayand and what kind of decisions you can make to maybe let it capitalize on some later summer moisture, fall moisture to make sure that it's in a healthy position for next year.

Kara Mastel (08:31):

Does cutting height play into this? Is there anything you can adjust in that way?

Breanna Sentes (08:37):

So cutting height really depends on the type of crop that you're targeting. So it all has to do with how those plants are growing. So alfalfa type plant, they're storing those energy in the tap root in the crown of the crop, and that's where it's growing from. It's from the base or the crown of the crop. So you can actually cut an alfalfa a lot lower than you can our grass species alfalfa, you could cut as little as two inches more the grass species, it's going to regrow from the base of the grass or from the tillers. So you want to have a little bit more left standing there because it needs that photosynthesis to start regrowing again, right? Whereas the alfalfa is regrowing from the root reserve. That being said, if you're cutting your alfalfa every year in that vegetative or early bloom stage and you're cutting it really close to the ground every time you go and cut it, you're pulling from those root reserves.

(09:30):

And so if you do this year over year, you can expect that stand to get more stressed, maybe die off over time because it's not having time to replenish those root reserves. Whereas if you give it a few more inches or you leave it a bit more mature at some of the cuttings, it has time to replenish those reserves. The other thing to take into account with cutting height is if you cut really low, that swath is going to be laid really low to the ground, it's going to have less airflow underneath. And if you live in a high humidity area or an area that risk of rain and you're going to have some water standing on the ground or close to the surface, then it's going to make it harder to dry down for you. The second factor that is if you cut really low to the ground, you're going to have less ground cover, less trash there, so there's going to be more dirt exposed to the sun.

(10:20):

We know that's going to heat up the ground, it's going to not utilize the moisture that's there as well as it could. So there is some benefit to cutting it a little bit higher in terms of longevity and utilizing the moisture that you have. I also thought interesting with this question, there was some research at a Missouri where they looked at this and they compared two or four inch cutting height, and one of the portions of the study looked at how quickly that crop regrew to a ton per acre of yield. And so if they did a two inch cutting height that took 64 days, if they did a four inch cutting height that took 40 days. So just showing how much quicker that stand can regrow if it has a little bit more biomass to help with photosynthesis and using the energy that's there.

(11:08):

And the other portion of that study was looking at how much more yield you actually get from that extra inch that you cut. And in a three cut system, they only benefited 0.13 ton per acre. So that doesn't actually accumulate to a lot of bales when you take that extra inch or two, but it could have long-term impact on your stand or how quickly it regrows for your second cut or your grazing. So there are things to take into account when deciding how low to cut it. Of course, in a drought stress scenario you're thinking, I need to get every ton I can, but you're also, if you're in a drought situation, you also know that you need to be planning for this to maybe persist year after year. So you're also considering how keep your stand alive. So I guess those are some things to think about.

Kara Mastel (11:58):

Almost gets to the point that you go, okay, is this a drought or is this our new normal and is this something we need to adjust to?

Breanna Sentes (12:04):

Is this our new normal? Absolutely.

Kara Mastel (12:07):

So let's talk drawing down. I mean obviously it's going to take a little longer in high humidity situations and it's going to be a little bit shorter and extremely dry conditions, but why is it important to make sure that, I think sometimes we think, okay, if you are in a really hot dry area and you're cutting that, it doesn't need to dry down, but it really still does.

Breanna Sentes (12:33):

And I guess maybe I should go back to when timing your hay cutting or any forage crop that you're doing what you're doing, if you're cutting a crop and from then on out, you're only preserving what you had there. That is the best it will ever be for every decision you make from that point is all about conserving quality and dry matter losses. And so why that becomes important when you're considering dry down is there are a few different things you can take into account to help dry down happen really quickly to preserve as much dry matter and as much nutrient quality that's there. And so if you're in a high humidity area, you're probably a lot more used to crimping your crop or conditioning it. And what that's doing is just breaking that stem up at multiple points, letting more moisture leave the stem more quickly because it's about getting it done quickly, reducing plant respiration.

(13:27):

And what that is is just the plant is using the moisture that's there using some of the sugars that are within the plant to keep growing essentially. And it'll do that till it leads in enough moisture that that process stops. So usually that first 20 to 40% moisture happens really quickly, or pardon me, moisture lock happens really quickly. It's that last to get you from a 30% moisture to 15% moisture, that seems to take the most amount of time. So I guess back to your question about how to encourage dry down. If you have a big swath or you have a decent yield, crimping is something that really does speed up the dry down process, making sure that that swath is a little bit off the ground like we talked about with cutting heights, that you're getting some airflow underneath, consider laying that sloth out a bit wider so that it's not stacked quite so high.

(14:23):

Part of that has to do with airflow and just keeping it really even through the crop and how it drags down. Part of that has to do with how the plaque drags down. So you lose the first 10 or 20% moisture I believe is through stoma openings, which are within the leaf. And the leaf needs to see light in order for that to matter, to be open to lose that moisture. So in these really nice big spots, the bottom of it is dark and it's not exposed to the light to lose that tomato. So that's okay, as long as you're going along a couple days later and maybe raking it to expose it underside three or four hours later, you've probably lost that moisture that you were hoping to lose and it's ready to bale. So I guess there's lots of different techniques to encourage dry down, and I do really think it depends on the yield you're looking at and the humidity in your area.

(15:16):

Another practice that's a lot more common in high humidity areas, especially eastern Canada, would be tetering or using a hay teter. And what that does is actually spread the sloth out. You might do it a day after you cut it, kind of fluffed it up, expose it to more air. With a system like that, you do have to rake it back into a slot in order to make it into a bale, but it can really accelerate the dry down process. And like I said, whether you're making silage or dry hay, the ideal situation is to get it cut at a really good time and then get that dry down to happen as quickly as possible and then preserved as the forage that you're targeting. It's when that process becomes too long or drawn out that you start to see more dry matter losses.

Kara Mastel (16:07):

And I don't mean to put a blanket across everyone, everyone's situation is very different, but would you say raking is essential here?

Breanna Sentes (16:15):

I guess I grew up in northern Manitoba where we raked everything and part of it was we have one baler, and when you combine windrows, you could just make bales a lot faster. And we were dealing with decent sized windrows young hay crops. We also raked it to expose the underside to the air to get it to dry down quicker. Now I live in an area where we're dealing with smaller hay yields, more grassy hay. You see a lot less raking happening. I do think raking is a great tool to combine windrows to help with the dry down process, but it needs to be done at the right time. So you don't want it to be completely dry, right? That's where you're going to get the most leaf loss. And of course the leaf is a really high quality portion of the plant. So when you're going out to rake, if it's a grass hay, you want to have it at least 25% moisture.

(17:07):

Whereas now salsa hay, you could be 30 to 40% moisture and you're raking it because you don't want to go too dry and not call those leaves off. And I guess every stage along the way, all these practices do contribute a bit to dry matter losses. So raking could contribute to five to 15% dry matter loss, but if it means that you are getting it bailed before it gets rained on, which could contribute to another 5% dry matter loss, right? Or maybe it means you rake it and you're going to get a bale, that's not going to spoil. Yes, I'm going to get a bit of dry matter loss from the raking, but I'm hopefully going to prevent dry matter loss from these other three that could happen later on, if that makes sense.

Kara Mastel (17:52):

And I know you mentioned that it obviously depends if you're planning on bailing or you're planning on saging, but I mean there's often discussion that if hay stays too wet, you can silage it. But I mean that's not really ideal, is it? Talk to me about risk mitigation options to cut hay that gets rained on

Breanna Sentes (18:13):

For sure. For sure. Yeah, I would say in my opinion, if you're going to make hay in the sage, I want that in your mind before you go out and cut it, because for sage to happen, you need to have really good substrates. So in El Salva salad, it's going to be the sugars and you need to have enough cellular moisture for the fermentation process to happen. You need to feed those microbes, moisture and substrate for them toile. Chances are if it's dried down a bit and then it's got rained on and then it's dried down a bit and then it's got rained on, you've lost a lot of that good cellular sub substrate for insiling, and you've lost a lot of that good moisture for in tyling, chances are you're sitting at 30 to 40% moisture. It's not ideal for insiling, it's just going to create a big moldy heating mess in the bale.

(19:04):

Not a nice silage. In those situations, I would likely lean more on a preservative, like a propionic acid where hopefully you can get it to below 30% moisture. That's when those become effective. You see those used most and at 20 to 30% moisture. And what they're doing is they're actually acidifying or dropping the pH of that bale and preventing heating and molding. They're not going toile it, but it's a way to preserve what's there. And so that's when I see more of these preservatives like propionic or acetic acid being used in areas of high humidity where it really struggled to get that last five to 10% moisture or in areas where the range just isn't cooperating and you can't get that last five to 10% moisture. I'd lean a bit on those type of preservatives. My first gut instinct would not be to go out and silage. I hate it's been rain on a few times. I just think you run the risk of making some pretty rank bales that don't, some of these scenarios, as sad as it is, the best solution might be a four-legged creature going out there and grazing as much as she can and just aging it that way and hopefully it's not a lot of acres that you have that are being rained on at once.

Kara Mastel (20:27):

Absolutely. And like you said, I mean obviously sometimes there's times where just rains and reins and reins, but I like what you said about maybe going out and doing just a bit at a time if there's some rain in the forecast, because that's a great mitigation tool I think.

Breanna Sentes (20:44):

And really when you go in with the mindset that I'm going to make this hay into silage, if you cut it and you get it crimped and you have a good drying afternoon, it might only be 12, maybe 24 hours before you're going in there and in sling it. And it depends on if you're doing a salad bale, you want it slightly drier. If you're doing pit silage, you want it slightly wetter. And so if we're making really nice quality dairy alfalfa pit silage, we want it in the pit within 12 hours, we need to be finding a way to get it to dry down really uniformly, whether that's crimping it, tetering it, and then raking it back together. We're trying to get that dry down to happen really uniformly really quickly, but in the pit as fast as we can. So those are sometimes solutions when mother nature is not working with you.

(21:32):

And the one thing I'll mention about raking, and back to your question about it is when you rake, you're going to bring in some dirt into the sample, right? So when dry hay, you're going to see your ash climb in the sample, you're going to have more and more dirt. So that's not ideal, but especially in a silage, it becomes more of an issue because it can cause some issues within siling and some bad bacterial action. So I would say take that into consideration if you're in filing, really factor in do you need to be raking it? How can I be raking it so that it's not getting full of dirt too? So just something to worth noting, I guess.

Kara Mastel (22:14):

You mentioned some preservatives that you can use to maintain hay quality, but any other methods that I can maybe protect my hay from moisture and mold when it comes to actually storing the bale?

Breanna Sentes (22:26):

So the ideal right is getting it to the right moisture. If you've had loop preservatives, you've now made this really good bale. Ideally you'd have it undercover. That would be the perfect scenario and it would be good in storage almost indefinitely it wouldn't change. And that's because most of the storage losses are coming from rain. And so that's why parts of the provinces or parts of the prairie are never going to put them undercover because took the rain as much. So I guess in western Canada, in Alberta, set up your feed yards so that they're not sitting in moisture. There's lots of airflow. The ideal scenario would be single row bales. They can be butted up to each other, but hopefully three to four feet between the rows, there's lots of airflow, lot of drainage. If you do get a big rain event, it becomes less ideal when you have to stack bales, whether it's a mushroom stack or a pyramid. Reason being that when you do get those rain events, it's going to wick off the top bales and start to accumulate on the bottom bales. And the longer that moisture sits and penetrates those bales, the more storage loss you're going to see. So if you're tight on space, maybe you think about how quickly am I going to use this storage and what's this forage valued at? Right? So maybe your straw bales or what get oiled in a big pyramid and your hay bales get the nice spread out rows.

(23:52):

In theory, you can cover your pyramids with big tarps, but just like a silage tarp, you need to keep that tarp in good quality, that it's not contributing to the factor of accumulating moisture. And now with the tarp over it, there's less breathing, less airflow, it could make things worse in theory. Another thing to consider would be bale density. So the harder packed bales are going to wick the water off better than some of those soft core loose packed bales. And the BCRC beef cattle Research Council Council, pardon me. Thank you. They just have a wealth of information out there, but they have this one graphic that goes around and I love it. And they talk about volume LT based on your size of bale when you have that four inch cross, and it's pretty hard to get rid of that four inch crust when a bale sat there for a year. We just know that there's some weathering that happens, but that four inch crest on a six foot bale is only 20% of the volume, or the four inch crest on a five foot bale is 25% of the volume. So maybe if you're putting up a lot of bales of hay, you consider increasing your bale size to reduce the dry matter losses that you're seeing in storage.

Kara Mastel (25:10):

And anything else you can do to prevent nutrient loss there? I

Breanna Sentes (25:13):

Do think the big ones there are making sure that that bale set up prophecy that's not going to heat. And then just trying to protect it from the elements of the rain. Those would be kind of my two key ones. And I guess when you think of the heating, some people think whether it's salad or bales, oh, it kes, it kind of gets that caramel smell. The cows really like it. Well, that caramel smell and that heating and that off color tell us that heating happened here, a mallard reaction happened here, which is just a fancy word for that nice brown crest on your loaf for bread that the carbohydrate cooked with the protein, and now that protein's not available. So those are just good indicators that something else got this nutrient and your cow can't use it. Now whether that's a microbe or the heating event have used that energy and protein and now there's less for your cows. So yeah, I guess beyond making sure the bale is put up at a good moisture and encouraging airflow in the bale yard would be kind of my big two factors.

Kara Mastel (26:18):

And would those factors be the same in the super dry condition as well if that hay goes in really dry?

Breanna Sentes (26:23):

Yeah, I think so. That's a good question. I guess I haven't thought about that in terms of super dry, I know and super dry areas, they might be bailing in the middle of the night because they're trying to capture a bit of humidity to reduce leaf flos and make sure that it's, most of it's ending up in the bale instead of crisping up and ending up on the ground. But yeah, I think even in a really dry situation, it's good to have them spread out. Even if you do have some heating and whatnot, if they're spread out, it's likely a lot easier to handle. I hate to say the word fire when they're spread out like that rather than a big pyramid of bales going up.

Kara Mastel (27:05):

Okay. Anything else you would like to add when it comes to, I mean, everything we've talked about today,

Breanna Sentes (27:11):

I guess like I said, at the end of the day, you're never going to improve on the quality of the day you went out to cut it. So all these decisions you make after that or trying to get it into the bale as quickly and at the right moisture, it's possible. And of course, weather, nature doesn't always agree with our plans, but we do our best to work with her or work against her, I guess. But for sure, keeping an eye on the forecast is a frustrating one. And I know going up, it was before iPhone where you had the weather app and we just lived with the Weather channel on, and I think it was six and 36 minutes past the hour was the long-term weather forecast. And we were expected to keep an eye on that if we were in the house. So it's definitely something that though we've chatted about at the coffee table is should we be cutting today or wait another day?

Kara Mastel (28:04):

If producers want to reach out for more information, can they get ahold of you?

Breanna Sentes (28:07):

Oh, absolutely. You can find me on Beef Smart Va on our website or my email is brianna@beefsmart.ca. Okay,

Kara Mastel (28:16):

Perfect. Thank you very much for your time, Rihanna. I appreciate you joining us on the show today. Thanks again for tuning into another episode of the Bovine podcast. We really can tackle so many different topics and perspectives, so keep that in mind. If you have a question that's been keeping you up at night, why not send me a message? I'll see if I can get an expert on the podcast to discuss it. I mean, chances are, if you're having a hard time figuring something out, someone else has the same questions too. You can reach me through a BP social channels, or you can send me an email kara m@albertabeef.org. Until next time, empty your hay and straw filled pockets before you come in the house and join Early Sunrise Coffee and keep on keeping on. Bye for now.