RED DEER – With more than 500 millimetres of rain in parts of southern Alberta last year, hay producers with no storage saw severe product downgrading.
Tracy Dow, a processed forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture in Lethbridge, said there were reports of small square bale stacks with all nine tiers showing water damage and stacks of five-high big squares completely soaked. Access to adequate storage would have reduced or eliminated this downgrading and saved producers a lot of money.
“Timothy is a high value crop. For that reason, it demands good storage if you’re going into the export market. What we do, and what we don’t do, has a direct impact on crop profitability,” Dow told the recent Western Canadian Forage Summit in Red Deer.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
“Two things are important: the grade and the quality impact. With timothy, in a lot of cases grade is determined the minute it comes out of the baler. There’s nothing we can do to improve the grade after it’s baled.”
Dow said producers should get their bales into storage as soon as possible to maintain that grade. Any rain on timothy bales can affect how much is accepted for export and its grade. Prices tend to drop $10 to $15 per tonne as the grades drop.
Producers should protect hay from rain and sun bleaching on exposed material and keep moisture away from the top and bottom layers.
“There’s a natural wicking action of moisture up into the bale, with bales stored on the ground,” Dow said.
Dow said 70 percent of last year’s timothy crop graded choice or better, which averaged $140 per tonne.
He said proper storage is vital when growing for the export market, especially if the hay is on the bottom end.
“What defines adequate storage? In my opinion, it’s giving due consideration to not only the top layer, but the sides and the bottom. In a nine-tier bale wagon, there’s 22.5 percent of the product in the top and bottom layer. If the top and bottom layer are out, you’ve lost 22.5 percent of the high prices automatically. You’re already into that cow market.”
Dow said the top and bottom bales on a four or five high stack of large square bales represents 40 or 50 percent of the stack.
On a four by four round bale, the outside two-inch layer is 16 percent of the bale’s volume and a two-inch layer on a five by six bale is about 11 percent of a bale’s volume.
“So there’s a significant amount of material, whether small square, large square or round bales, that’s exposed to the weather.”
Dow said storage must be readily available at baling time. Producers who bale a big field don’t want to let it sit in the field for an extended period.
“Location is critical, regardless of what kind of option you take for storage,” he said.
“You want something with good natural drainage and you want year-round access.”
Producers are encouraged to build a solid stack pad from coarse rock and develop drainage away from the area.
Producers with a processor nearby may be able to buy custom storage rather than storing the bales in their own shed.
“If you go to any custom processor, he’s going to charge you for storage, $15 to $20 per tonne,” Dow said.
“So how much product you have to sell, at $20 a tonne storage cost, tells you whether you can afford storage or not.”
Dow said four systems are most commonly used to protect timothy bales: tarps; fabric-covered structures; wooden structures and steel.
While tarps are adaptable to most kinds of bales, they have shortcomings because any part of the stack that’s not covered will be downgraded by weather.
“You want the stack peaked, so it sheds moisture, but they’re portable and you can take them anywhere,” he said.
“Tarps will give you some flexibility, but they can be labour intensive and high maintenance in wind. They may last two or three years, if everything goes well.”
Producers can put 210 large 1,500 pound bales under a 48 foot tarp for $1,385 if they stack them four wide and six high and use top protection, side curtains and a ground sheet to prevent moisture wicking up. That works out to $9 to $10 a tonne.
Dow said the CoverAll system is a fabric roof over a pre-installed wall. They can have open sides or walls that reach all the way to the ground, which would protect the stack sides from bleaching.
A 62 foot by 100 foot building holds about 544 large round bales, or almost 300 tonnes. Such a building, without the sidewalls, costs about $51,000, or $8.31 per sq. foot. Compared to custom storage of $20 per tonne, producers could expect the fabric structure to pay for itself in 8.7 years. Dow said that doesn’t take into account money that is saved by preventing grade reduction.
The Econo Shelter fabric system, which is the same size as the CoverAll, costs $8 to $10 per sq. foot with a similar payback period.
Permanent structures include wood buildings with metal cladding and steel sheds.
Dow said a typical wood building, 64 feet by 128 feet by 20 feet, provides 8,200 sq. ft of storage. With three closed walls, an open front and a two-foot overhang, it can handle about 350 tonnes of small square bales using a bale wagon and costs $55,000, or $6.70 per sq. foot. He said the payback period is eight years compared to custom storage.
“Steel buildings are the Cadillac of hay storage and can be sized to fit any situation,” Dow said.
“Three walls and an open front give you year-round access. A single slope roof sheds all moisture to the back of the building and out of the working area.”
A 60 foot by 90 foot by 20 foot building will provide 5,400 sq. feet of storage and 450 tonnes of big square storage. It costs about $60,000, or slightly more than $11 per sq. foot. The payback period is about 6.7 years.
