How many bales per acre per year?

Question

Say I wanted to set an one acre plot with straight alfalfa. And I wanted to pack the cuttings as the little square bales. This is all hypothetical so consider all soil quality, seed quality, water quantity, pest management, packing density, and weather at average - Not the best but not the worst. And say I wanted to do three cuttings in one year. How many bales would you assume would be pulled out?

Answer 1

OK, you can figure to make around 10 tons/acre of alfalfa hay. that would be 20,000 lbs of hay and say you had a bale size of 80 lbs that would give you 250 bales of hay per year.

Answer 2

You didn't say how much your "little square bales" weigh.The only small square bales I've ever seen were theses oddly, and supper densely packed ones at a local pet store.  They were 60 pounds each.

Most bales that are fed by horse owners at rectangular.  They are usually around 100 pounds (so 20 of them to a ton), but they range from 75-120 in weight.

You also didn't put down what TYPE of hay.  I'm guessing alfalfa, since you said three cuttings a year.

I live in Idaho.  We grow a LOT of alfalfa here.  I'm going to tell you tonnage, and allow you to figure out the number of bales, since I have no idea what you bales weigh.  Poor quality, played out fields   around here produce about 4 tons per acre, per year.  Well maintained, and usually organic (with tons of organic matterials applied as fertilizers to build up the soil) are producing 12 tons per acre, per year.  Average production is concidered 7 tons of alfalfa per acre, per year.

Those numbers are with an average of three cuttings.  To harvest a played out field takes you just as many passes, and just as much fuel in your tractor as it does to harvest a really good field.

Your area, climate, soil, ect may varry conciderably, so the amount you harvest may varry conciderably.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years