On 12/7/2013 4:44 AM, Brian Swale wrote:
> Wheat-straw bales
I've seen a lot of bales this year. 3,500 miles through the US NW and a lot of
miles through Maine and NE Mass, a great
deal of it on wandering two lane roads took us past endless fields with baled
stuff.
NorCal's Sacramento valley has huge operations that make rectangular bales and
stack them under roofs without sides. In
the parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and W. Montana we saw, there were both
rectangular bales, generally with sideless
sheds in evidence, and rolls. I might have seen one place with plastic wrapped
rolls, but almost all were bare.
In the NE, everything I recall was rolls completely wrapped in tight plastic
(like their boats as winter approaches).
There were some plastic covered heaps of something or other, but I suspect
mostly dirt and such.
I thought I understood this stuff, at least broadly: hay is the whole plant,
straw the stalks left after the grain is
harvested. Alfalfa is always hay?
Hay is livestock feed, straw for lining stalls, protecting spectators, building
houses, and so on. A quick web look
shows this to be largely true in that straw has very limited use as feed.
So why roll up straw? It sure looks like it would make it much less useful for
most of the things I'd think it is useful
for. Hay, sure, and the idea of holders for it in the field mentioned in this
thread does sound good.
I'm sure I must be missing something. Please, farm boys, enlighten me.
Straw Loss Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|