As a hay producer, TB breeder, and have had a population of over 50 mostly mares and horses over 2 on the farm. I think I can speak with a bit of knowledge, hands on knowledge and experience. It is what I do for my livelihood.
Timothy is a native grass to the New England area. First cultivated in NH for livestock and becoming a hybrid. It is not named for the person who recognized it’s forage value and the cultivated it. It is name for some guy named Timothy who all recognized its forage value and how to market as such. It’s name for the “reseller”. Whether this is fact or not, not for me to say just repeating what has been written.
Orchard is considered to be a native grass but forage historians feel it is of European decent. Brought here and grown in the 1700s. Improved upon since.
Both have similar characteristics. The only real discerning difference is with a first cutting, the seed pods are very different. Timothy a has slightly boarder leaf with first cuttings. It is easy to tell at what stage of maturity a first cutting of Timothy was baled at. The size of the seed pod dates it. They are cone shaped and get longer with age. A late baled first cutting of Timothy can have seed cones several inches long. Orchard seed pods remain about the same size they just get more fluffy and the seeds are easily dislodged,drop off with little to no effort.
Orchard has multiple clustered seed pods on the stem and are on the “fluffy” side of things. Especially when cut late. If cut very late most of the seeds will have dropped when baled. Timothy not so much to very little. The seeds of both late cuts will fall off/out when manipulated. Timothy fall less.
Late cuttings of Timothy will be a bit more stalky than orchard but have a slightly better leaf content. As both 1st cutting mature the upper leaf will shrink and turn brown as the plant goes to seed. The bales will have noticeably
more “brown/dead” leaf content.
As to test/analyzing both are relatively the same. WAY too much emphasis is put on the importance and value of a “test report”. But the businesses that cater to this are laughing all the way to the bank. I understand the need for the few who are unfortunate to have horses with metabolic issues. But the vast majority of caretakers don’t have to deal with these health issues.
A hay test report is only as good/reliable as the person taking the samples. The samples HAVE to be taken from MANY bales from many different sections of a hay stand. Combined and sent in MULTIPLE different sample bags. So as to get a condenses of the whole cutting. Not just a few bales from one section. This would be time consuming, the producer would have to be diligent in “marking” where each wagon load came from and take the same amount of samples from each section. This would add considerable expense that consumers are unwilling to pay for. There is NOT a lot of profit margin in producing hay. The most profit is made by re-seller not the producers. Both re-sellers and producers have dealt enough with PITA horse hay buyers who want, demand a “report” before buying. They know the in the grand scheme of things, in the real world of hay they reports hold little value of the over all “quality”. But to appease the buyers they just pick the nicest looking bales and test those. Print up multiple copies and hand them out. This is NOT nefarious it is placating to hay buyers who’s “knowledge” comes from the internet and or by word of mouth from those who have read the same and have never made a bale of hay.
Timothy does not do well below northern PA and and other states with hot and high humidity climates. A pure stands further south are easily blighted and the whole stand dies off. Which is way this is correct;
"Almost no one makes straight Orchard grass hay in my area (upstate NY)".
Timothy grows best in that neck of the woods and further north up through Canada. Orchard is not as cold winter tolerant. Timothy matures later than Orchard by about 3 weeks.
But Orchard will withstand compacted soil much better than Timothy. The stand will last lot longer. Baling equipment is heavy and compacts the soil with every cutting. Orchard is a better pasture grass for the same reason. Orchard is more tolerant of hot dry summers. Less die back. Which it is why it is more commonly grown in the west.
I usually get 2 very good cutting and most years a 3rd. Depending on soil moisture levels. This doesn’t happen in the dry west, combined with hot dry summer heat. The producer will get a lot of die-back when orchard is cut short in hot dry weather. The rule of diminishing returns kicks in with each season if the producer gets greedy. Reseeding is expensive.
Through out what is written in books hay producing. They are written in a class room not by experienced producers. In the areas that Timothy and Orchard grows best almost never has the ideal weather window to bale first cuttings at its best. Orchard mid to late May, Timothy a couple of weeks later.
In the dry west producers can. But there is a trade off because they need many more acres to produce the same yield. They get very thin second cuttings at best and little to no chance of a third cutting with their growing conditions.
“I have second cut timothy, not very stemmy. I agree, first cut can be very stemmy”
This has me scratching my head. Maybe there are different varities and or the plant acts/grows differently in other parts of the country that it is not "native to.
But in my many years of producing/baling my stand of 2/3 Orchard, 1/3 Timothy. And the same with a lot of producers in my neck of the woods. After the first cutting Orchard or Timothy does not regrow seed stems. There are no stems in a 2nd or 3rd cutting. There maybe other stuff in the stand that does.
The only time this will happen is if the first cutting is cut before the “boot stage”. But even than the stems are not nearly as abundant and on the small side of things. This is fact in my neck of the woods.
Second, 3rd cutting of both are ALWAYS “soft” because the bale is ALL leaf. It would be pretty much impossible to tell the difference of a second cutting of Timothy or Orchard. Even to the producer.
To evaluate the "quality’ of a second cutting is pretty much the same as first less the seed stalks. ALL REAL horse hay producers want to cut and bale when the grass is at its best. But mother nature plays a BIG roll in this. If the weather window are there nothing can change that. We HAVE to wait.
The longer we have to wait the more natural die-back occurs. So bales will have a higher percentage of “brown leaf”, dead leaf. A schooled eye can easily “do the math”. Sometimes every producer has to deal with the same weather patterns and just about all local loads will look/be the same. Regardless of the producer.
Large scale producer loads can vary. Because they can only cut and bale so much in any given week. So even with weeks of idea cutting windows the longer a stand sits in the sun the more die-back, brown leaf will be found.
The buyer may or may not find a better load from others. Take your chances. Most hay buyers have no clue what it takes to make “quality horse hay”.
“Second and Third cuttings are finer, but then you get the toxic weeds like horse nettle and foxtail”
Neither of these are “toxic”. We need to nip this in the bud right now. Horse nettle is never eaten for good reason. Its got sharp nasty needles horse will not eat it. But when encounter they will paw the hay all over the place to find areas with out. Wasting far more than needed. For the discerning producer it is the bane or scourge of the hay field. It is not easy nor cheap to get rid of. It produces a prolific amount of seeds. But they do tend to stay in one area. It creeps in and dispersed by birds and other animals who eat the pods.
Foxtail is a generic name used by the uneducated for a number of varieties of a summer grass. It is an annual and only goes to seed in my neck of the woods in July, early August. That is why the “tell tail” seed pods are only found in 2nd, and 3rd cuttings. Reproduces form seeds each years. It is NOT toxic. But the leaf is not very nutritional either.
The problem is the majority of the uneducated think that any bale of hay that has seed pods that look like the pictures they have seen is the PITA variety of “fox tail”. The kind that produces barbed seeds that get caught in a horse’s gums. In my neck of the woods and most woods these PITA seeds are only produced by the Giant Foxtail.
It is easily identified by a discerning hay producer because it towers over the rest of the hay stand long before it goes to seed. If caught early it tends to grow in patches. It is killed off with a herbicide which also kills off the surrounding “good” grass that will need to be re-seeded. Not a big deal if caught early.
Unfortunately for the producers internet educated hay buyers think anything in a bale that looks like a “fox tail” is nasty and to be avoided. PURE BUNK.
The majority of this “look a like” is not noxious. It is what we call common barn yard grass, junk summer grass. The “tails” are very small, the seeds are round and DO NOT cause harm to horse’s gum, lips at the Giant barbed seeds.
The barn yard variety is a TOTAL PITA. It will creep into any hay stand given time. It puts out a prolific amount of seeds. It’s just like dandy lions, you cut the seed heads and within days they grow back twice as much. The ONLY way to get rid of it is to spray with ground clear killing off everything before it goes to seed. Replant the stand in the late summer and to make sure to eliminate any residual seeds from the year before put down a pre-emergent in the spring.
This is labor intensive and EXPENSIVE. Both of which rarely justify what people are willing to pay for hay. The producer will just sell it to cow people. Plenty of demand from the cattle industry. At least in my neck of the woods.
If people want a good deal on hay learn about good hay from people who REALLY know what they are talking about. NOT form the internet, NOT from what is written by class room hay experts, NOT from extension agents.
Alfalfa is way over valued by horse people. It is not hay in the true sense of the definition. It is not grass. It is the “head” of a legume. Where the legume gets its nutrition, grows from. Much like carrots. It has deep roots, stores “water” in the “legume” part and regrows well even in dry hot weather. Under decent growing conditions a producers can get 5-6+ cuttings. In most areas it cost a lot more than grass hay. Especially in dairy and beef producing areas. IMO the cost benefit for horse owners does NOT justify the additional cost.
Yes it is candy to horses and that makes the care takes feel good. Alfalfa leaf is small and fragile, crumbles easily. A lot of it is wasted when feed outside. A lot is licked off the stall floor. Alfalfa is generally too high in protein for horses to process. So they piss the excess out, drink more water and messy stalls. They can also develop for lack of a better way of putting it, “kidney stones”.
I don’t even feed it to my broodmares. They “milk up” just fine on my Orchard/Timothy. My foals are strong and look great. I have few to no “bone growth issues”.
The above is based on my experience in my neck of the mid-Atlantic growing area with Orchard/Timothy and many conversations with other producers. Far more experienced then me.
Please excuse any spelling, grammar, run sentences, etc. Will fix at a later date. No one is paying me to write a experience based tutorial.
but the exact same climate belt.