Grass bales and Silage

The many engine and script changes in Farming Simulator 19 allowed for many new features. Two of those are a multi-step grass drying process, and improved rotting.

A new multi-step drying process has been added to create hay. When cutting wet grass (as indicated by the “Wet Crops” icon in the top right corner), it first needs to be tedded first. Afterwards it needs to dry in the sun to become hay. When cutting dry grass (low moisture meaning the “Wet Crops” icon is not shown), it does not need tedding but still needs to dry.

This means that making hay now depends on the weather. Good planning is required. The more detailed forecast will certainly help here as the drying potential is indicated there. The drying potential depends on wind conditions, relative humidity and solar radiation, meaning grass will generally dry easier in the beginning of summer than late in winter. The difference between dry and wet grass is at a crop moisture content of 20%. The crop moisture content can be measured with the RM measurement hand tool.

If hay is left in the rain it will turn wet again, and afterwards it will start to rot. The same goes for dry grass that has been cut. Freshly mown wet grass will not rot before the second night after mowing.

Hay and straw rots when kept outside in the rain. However, straw and hay heaps inside buildings will not rot anymore, like was the case in Seasons 17. Grass still always rots, as this material is wet. With the new drying system described above, it will take two days instead of one for the rotting to start on grass heaps.

Bales

Grass bales will gradually rot and disappear after two days, unless they are wrapped so that they become silage bales. Wrapped bales do not turn into silage immediately, but instead need some time to ferment. It takes one third of a season (1 period) to fully ferment either a silage bale.

Hay and straw bales exposed to rain will start to rot so keep them inside sheds. These bales will only rot if the map has been prepared with a so called Seasons mask. The default placeables are prepared with the mask.

Chaff in bunkers will take one third of a season to ferment after the chaff is covered (same time as bales). After chaff is dumped in the bunker, but before covering it, the chaff is not affected by weather and will not rot.