I did not know.

[thecfarm]

I did not know that dry grass mows so much better then wet grass. 
Been a wet few months here. I mowed the front lawn and it came out looking great.
Then I jumped on the small tractor and bush hogged the field.
The last time I did it was wet. Then I bush hogged in the rain a couple times. We are way behind on the fields.

[Peter Drouin]

Farmers around here are having a hard time getting the hay in. So wet. Rain today.  

[GAB]

According to the weather personnel in the Burlington, VT area this will be the 26th weekend in a row with at least a trace of rain.  
June in this area is a bad time to attempt to put up dry hay.  If you can get two days without rain you can aim for haylage and hope that you don't cut up the fields.  
GAB

[TreefarmerNN]

Farmers around here are having a hard time getting the hay in. So wet. Rain today.  

We had a great week of hay weather and bearings went out on the mower on Wednesday of that week.  Still waiting on parts, grrrrrr.  But it's back to rainy weather so we aren't losing more hay time.  We mowed some fields with the Bush Hog set very high and will get back to it when the mower and weather permit.

[Resonator]

I heard that some farmers would cut hay in the morning, when there's still a little dew on it. Think they were doing (small) bales, and that it packs a little better. I suppose it would be less dusty too. Also they could set the baler how tightly packed a bale they wanted. Too heavy a bale and the guy riding the rack wagon won't like the tractor man by the end of the day.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, dry grass is much better mowing. 

Neighbor here has been making hay like crazy. He doesn't have large fields but by the time you cut, let it dry in the sun a bit, bale, haul, store....it takes some time.   

First part of June is always a little damp and cool. But been dry enough this week to get some hay in. June is our best hay up here.

[TreefarmerNN]

I heard that some farmers would cut hay in the morning, when there's still a little dew on it. Think they were doing (small) bales, and that it packs a little better. I suppose it would be less dusty too. Also they could set the baler how tightly packed a bale they wanted. Too heavy a bale and the guy riding the rack wagon won't like the tractor man by the end of the day.

That may be true in the west but if we did that here, with our humidity we'd have bales on fire in a few days or at best, moldy hay.  We always had to watch first cutting hay to get the moisture down both so it wouldn't mold and also so the bales weren't too heavy. 

Baling cornstalks with our round baler could require a little moisture but those were basically dead dry anyway.  Local conditions though make a huge difference.  Even a couple of hundred miles west in Virginia (and a thousand feet higher altitude) means they grow different grasses and treat them differently.

[Resonator]

Yeah, I was out west when I heard that. Around here dry conditions is ideally what they want.

[SwampDonkey]

Wet hay can catch a barn on fire in these parts.

[caveman]

On the Bermuda grasses, we'd sometimes mow hay in the morning and often bale it in the afternoon, but we were raking and windrowing it a couple of times before baling.  Baling it with too much moisture, like already stated, can burn the barn down or create moldy hay.  Usually, we'd mow one day and bale the next.  On good days, we aimed for 100 round bales, or 1000 square bales loaded and put in the barn.  We got $0.25/bale ($0.025 for the truck and driver and the rest divided between the crew of two or four).  $100 days were a lot of work.

When we were sprigging new hay fields, we'd bale it right after mowing.  Even making the bales small, they were some kind of heavy.  We usually only stacked them four or five bales high.  Another important note:  ensure you pull both strings off of the bale prior to putting it into the "hay slinger".  The person running it can get whipped like a rented mule if you don't (true story).

Wet grass will dull mower blades too, but it's a lot less dusty to mow wet grass.

[gspren]

We had a few days this past week dry enough for haying. A friend that farms a few hundred acres did some hay this week and uses mostly cab tractors but used an open one for tedding or fluffing. After baling into the big round bales he can't find his wallet, even had his son in law and 3 grandkids all over the fields where it likely fell and now he's wondering if it's in a bale. He sells most of it at auction.

[doc henderson]

If he is like me, prob. on his dresser or in his truck!