Meadow mowing

[benedmonds]

I planted a community orchard a few years ago. We are trying to encourage wild flowers etc. Last year we used a walkbehind mower and strimmers to cut the grass which was not ideal. What would be the best tool. Only about an acre but grass left long. We want to remove cuttings is possible /practicle. Local construction co is giving away cash to needy causes.

[felixthelogchopper]

What are your spacings between trees and what sort of finish do you want? We have a similar sounding orchard here where we just mow paths with an Iseki ride-on mower and leave the rest to it. Must be pretty sound as this year we had a swarm of bees colonise a hive which had been empty for the 2 years previous.

[ScottF]

Using a scythe mower is the recommended method since you can leave the stubble relatively tall and since it cuts so cleanly the material falls tidily and can be left for a few days for the critters to escape.

 

Like one of these: BCS Commander Mower

[difflock]

The essential requirment is to mimic the hay making practices of old.

Cut with a relatively narrow mower to allow critters to flee to each side.

Only cut the grass when it has shot is mature, or rather when the flowers among the grass have set seed, i.e. prob after mid July

Work the cut grass so as to dislodge the flower seed.

Remove the arisings.(and the associated nutrient.

simples!

Making hay was bloody physical work though.

PS

Some of the stupider Councils and NGO's though that baling silage was the same as making hay.

Buying very expensive mini round balers and tractors to do so.

For some strange unaccountable reason this did not work.

cheers

M

[benedmonds]

Using a scythe mower is the recommended method since you can leave the stubble relatively tall and since it cuts so cleanly the material falls tidily and can be left for a few days for the critters to escape.

 

Like one of these: BCS Commander Mower

 

My thoughts were a sycythe mower, but do we then have to rake and load the cuttings by hand, we could get the hay rake but would still need to pick up the hay. Is there one tool to do it all?

 

 

The orchard facebook page if folk are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/suttonboningtonorchard?ref=hl

Edited August 21, 2013 by benedmonds

[difflock]

But as I have attempted to explain it is necessary to "work" the dry cut grass and flowers to dislodge the seeds and allow them to fall to the ground.

Hay being "turned" and scattered and rowed up, sometimes multiple times in order to get it all as dry as possible.

Then remove the "hay"

cheers

marcus

[benedmonds]

But as I have attempted to explain it is necessary to "work" the dry cut grass and flowers to dislodge the seeds and allow them to fall to the ground.

Hay being "turned" and scattered and rowed up, sometimes multiple times in order to get it all as dry as possible.

Then remove the "hay"

cheers

marcus

 

I understand that and the sythe mower with hay rake would do two of the jobs and we'd have to then collect the hay.

Which we could get a bunch of volunteers to do I guess. The issue is getting people at the right time to do the various jobs. The more mechanised it is the less organising is needed..

[Paul Jenks]

Ask these folk, HomePage | Flora locale

Though Difflock has summed up nicely. Once the hay has been worked you could use a pedestrian baler to get the sward off the ground. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMK3O00Fyo0]BCS Model 853 walk-behind tractor with CAEB mini-haybaler - YouTube[/ame]

[renewablejohn]

Ben

 

If you wanted you could borrow my mini round baler like the one above. Well in fact you could go the whole hog and borrow all our kit as we set up to harvest hay between rows of temporary trees. We use an alpine tractor with single drum mower, followed by a Bamford wuffler to turn and shake the seeds out and then bale with the mountainpress round baler. We then wrap the bales to sell as a premium bale for horse people with horses which suffer from colic or resperitory illness as the wuffler takes out the dust.