Mowing Crop Circles of Irrigated Alfalfa near Mountain Home Idaho

Video of 3 Massey Ferguson/Agco self propelled mower conditioners mowing irrigated alfalfa near Mountain Home Idaho

[@rustyrailspikeproductions]

Man I wish I could mow my lawn at 15 MPH. One thing that always amazes me is that when they turn around they don't spread the lines of grass around with the tires. Great video Mike keep them coming.

[@GosselinFarmsEdGosselin]

Been sharing your Idaho videos with my buddy in Idaho. He's east of Mountain Home... So far he knows everyone in the videos 😎 Thanks for the video Mike!!

[@daleroth236]

Back in '81 I flew over Colorado and took a picture from the plane I was on. Couldn't figure out whey they farmed this way and now I know. Thanks for sharing one aspect of farming.

[@robertsmith4040]

One of fond memories of traveling out west was the sweet smell of drying alfalfa 😊

[@scruffy6151]

The sweet smell of cut hay.

[@crisis-cast]

I used to cut hay in Poston Arizona when I was younger. I really liked that job.

[@toddphillips1588]

That right there folks is a lesson on how to correctly turn your self propelled mower at the end of a row, instead of pivoting on your inside tire and scrubbing a circle in the ground at each row end. Nice job!!

[@whatsgweed]

the drone footage of the field cut looks soo neat and satisfying

[@shaungreenlee2376]

I sure miss the smell of fresh cut alfalfa from when I grew up on a small farm years ago.

[@Bernie5172]

Excellent movie Michael. One of your best A Great farm too

[@nectcruiser]

Quantity and quality for 3rd cutting alfalfa is amazing can't wait for the bale picking vids. Also looking forward to potato and sugar beet harvest vids Great job as always Mike Thanks

[@samson1200]

Nice thick lush weed free looking crop.I would love to have a crop like that to harvest.

[@LJO370]

Rode with Billy in his fertilizer buggy when I was a kid. He did the application work on the ranch I grew up on.

[@jettsmoke]

great job Mike I watch most of utube on my smart tv but once in a while in get on my computer to watch so i can comment and like

[@chadshafer8095]

Great Video , Nice Scenery ...........

[@noahater5785]

the people that dislike this probably thought the giant circles were caused by ginormous UFOs conjured up out of their totally bizarre imagination.

[@ChevyConQueso]

The joke's on them. Mike's channel rating goes up more than if they didn't click up or down at all.

[@ohiofarmlife4020]

Nice video Mike!

[@jakembakem8357]

I got a buddy that lives in Mountain Home, Idaho. Spent a summer helping him move those irrigation lines by hand. It gets tough when that hay starts growing up.

[@CarlosGonzalez-kt5be]

SALUDOS FROM : NEW YORK.. " THE BRONX "..

[@nmelkhunter1]

Very neat! 👍

[@billbooth4147]

Hope ya got to see Jim’s bale wagons while out there looks like he has a collection

[@rafbressana9988]

Nice vid mike 👍

[@beebop9808]

lol Just what I was thinking about. I used to see those crop circles flying out to Sacramento years ago.

[@markreetz1001]

That was quite a mowing lesson, Mike.

[@rightsideofthegrass8114]

14:30, .. ouch....?

[@joeroy02]

That is a unique way of making hay. They must make a lot of hay.

[@dzoskin.fan1]

Fat crop! Nice vid! Greetengs from Poland

[@tomhill4765]

18 months at Mt. Home AFB, 1975 to 1977. Home of the 366th Gunfighters.

[@onealfarms9967]

Utah 500 disc bind race lol great footage

[@davidchapin8297]

Oh man , you know how to make a guy home sick. That is my home area, although just a little further west, across the border into Oregon, but have been around that area a lot. I have seen the wheel tracks so deep that when the operator gets just a little too close to the track he drops the tire into the track and gets stuck. Have to be very careful in getting it out not to bend things.

[@leesteele9290]

Man that's some beautiful alfalfa and it must be really smooth to be able to push those mowers to the max like that !! I didn't see any gps receivers so they must be driving them to so ya gotta stay awake for sure!! I saw the some pipes laying between the rows in the corners but I don't understand how they water them in conjunction with the pivot?? You are really a lucky guy to make all these connections all across the country and thanks for taking us along!

[@BENFrankaka-sandstorm]

Lee Steele they for sure have gps

[@Snowtruckdriver]

Those are hand lines. After the hay is baled and picked up the lines are laid out again in the corners of the circle and they are hooked to a main line around the perimeter for their water supply. They get full acreage coverage that way out of a quarter section of land

[@samson1200]

I see the hawks are getting some fresh rabbit or mouse meals. Must happen often in large fields like that.They might want to attack your drone lol.

[@kevinbachmann3040]

So how big is the field they are working on and they are just flat getin it done

[@louiscouch2939]

The wolfe brothers have a big operation

[@clayegolf56]

This is probably a dumb question but I’ve flown over the circles before and they all look about the same in size, like one bigger one smaller size. I was wondering how many acres are per circle?

[@SlipShodBob]

I wish we could go that quick and cover that much ground as quickly but I think there is a big price difference than our bank manager would like between out £1750 offset mower and one of those

[@carteryoung9276]

You should come out and record again we own a family farm about 30 min to and hour away from mountain home. Where we run two self propelled Massey Ferguson mowers and four Massey Ferguson balers and are farm is caller young’s river front ranch.

[@farmhandmike]

Email me your contact information and maybe next summer we could do a video at your farm. [e-mail]

[@scotabot7826]

Man, those mowers are highly productive! I would be very curious to know how many acres those 5 machines could cut in a day, or how many acres 1 machine could cut in a day running at that speed. Would be very interesting.

[@matthewkrening5220]

I’ve gotten 50 acres done in six hours at around seven mph.

[@bn4172]

A windrower like this can easily average 20+ acres/hour. Ground speed is largely dependent on field smoothness as these rotary headers can function well even at 18 mph or more.

[@blfarms1687]

What are the wheels on the side of the header for ?

[@CarlosGonzalez-kt5be]

BROO..I like to know how many belt coming out..

[@greasyloveydubby1171]

lol Ik the wolf brothers my grandma was offered to rake there hay so many times she was a damn good operator too bad his brother passed away

[@mackowen9337]

We have a hay farm next to ours.

[@wilsonandrade6246]

✌️✌️✌️✌️

[@joeroy02]

Do they use GPS and auto steer on the mowers?

[@farmhandmike]

Yes

[@rawfarms2790]

That is enough to make someone dizzy

[@warrickjones590]

Australian here with a question is alfalfa what we call Lucerne ?

[@Ghis1964s]

Quebecer here, yes it is. It also took me a while to realize this myself (ex-farmer 35yrs ago) But even here in canadian-french part of the country, the guys around are also calling it alfalfa. I'm not sure, but I would suppose that in the past 30yrs, some new hybrid/improved version of luserne came out and it was named alfalfa since.

[@roberthartman4368]

@@Ghis1964s I grew up on a farm in the 1950's in the central San Joaquin Valley of Calif. and we grew alfalfa so it has been called that for at least 70 plus years here in the US.

[@jimc4731]

What are they doing with all that alfalfa? JIM

[@farmhandmike]

I believe they sell all of theirs to dairy farms.

[@pablovillalobos4662]

and the wolfe brother stingers

[@farmhandmike]

Video will be coming.

[@snootystu]

now we know where crop circles come from lol

[@markfleck7981]

How long is that pivot of irrigation?

[@delbutler885]

The pivots are generally 1/4 mile 1420 feet. They set in the middle of 160 acres

[@pablovillalobos4662]

Why didn't you upload the video of the wolfe brothers stackers

[@farmhandmike]

I will. I just haven't had time to edit them yet.

[@pablovillalobos4662]

ok, I wait for the video

[@hardlyableacresrsh7212]

Did you ask why they haven't gone to steamers so that they have a much larger window for baling?

[@jasonnorris2979]

Alfalfa is such a thick crop u don't want to mow any wider, otherwise it doesn't bale very good. Thin windows equals nice tight bales

[@delbutler885]

Most of their business is with people who feed the hay in a mixed ration so dryness isn't a real factor with their clientele

[@martybeaudry5747]

decent

[@carsonnuckols8834]

You should come out to California

[@andrewwaltz7579]

U would think they have a butterfly mower to cover all them acres

[@darrenkayes7911]

I agree with you, I just don't get the concept of those windrowers, to my way of thinking 2 or 3 tractors with triple mowers would be more efficient, then you can use the tractor for other tasks.

[@bn4172]

There are a few issues with triple mowers that have kept them from becoming popular in the big alfalfa-growing regions out west. First is the cost. A tractor and triple mower combination will run about $500,000 which is about what these three windrowers combined cost. Secondly is the quality of the swath that is produced. Getting the alfalfa to dry down quickly so they can get it baled and off the field is important and how the hay is conditioned and laid down is super critical to the drying process. The quicker the bales get off the field the sooner the irrigation can be turned back on. Lastly is the durability of the header. The triple mowers currently on the market would have a hard time holding up to the 1000+ hours of annual use these machines get.

[@wagnerferreiradeoliveira2869]

Voce faz e silagem ou feno

[@muhammadazam9955]

I need this job. My experince 15 year.

[@angelo60415]

i use to wonder what up with the circle down there flying 20k feet up in the air to vegas, now i know. crop circles.lol

[@GregLoechel]

Hi, all I can see is a tractor going backwards

[@Ghis1964s]

LOL.... Yeah. The concept goes back to 1959 or even before. They were "Windrowers" back then. Only a roller-beater and a sickle cutting-bar mostly use for grain harvest. One of the oldest names was Kilberry, from Canada, in the 1950s. Just a 16-ft sickle-bar with a beater mounted on 3 wheels powered by 4cyl 18HP Wisconsin engine, and a comfortable iron-seat. Owatonna (est.1865) had theirs around 1949. Since then, every hay machinery companies started their own. A few yrs later, the conditioner-mower came in, so they adapted the conditioning head/pickup to the "tractor" part of the windrower. Now they don't have those beater and sickle-bar. It's only a few sets of turtles mounted on gear-bar. Each rotating turtle cuts about 16"-18". The larger the mower, the longer the gear-bar and the more rotating-turtles the engine have to power. btw: Owatonna (later on, Mustang) became a division of Gehl Company. and, Kilberry Industries was founded in 1949 by Tom Kilberry in Winnipeg Manitoba. The company was later bough by the MacDonald family in 1971, becoming Macdon Industries, one of the top-name in windrow-swatter machines and combine mower-header. So yeah, the Z-turn lawn mower is far from being new as concept ;)