Hay-making is one of the most common way for forage preservation in livestock industry. The quality and production of hay could be affected by various factors. This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of tedding time and frequency on drying rate and feed value of forage rye (Secale cereale L.) hay. Rye was harvested on heading stage using mower conditioner. Hay was tedded at each set hour(09:00, 13:00 and 17:00) and sampled at each set hour to determine dry matter (DM) content. After two months’ preservation, CP (crude protein), ADF (acid detergent fiber), NDF (neutral detergent fiber), IVDMD (in vitro dry matter digestibility), TDN (total digestible nutrient), RFV (relative feed value), DM loss, visual scores and total fungi count were determined for estimation of hay quality. Tedding was necessary for both speeding up drying rate and improving forage quality. Tedding at 17:00 showed lower NDF content (p<0.05), and also higher RFV value was found compared with tedding at 9:00 and 13:00 (p<0.05). On the other hand, it was observed that more DM losses would be found when tedding later (p<0.05). Tedding in 1~3 times per day were lower in ADF and NDF content (p<0.05), increased CP, TDN and RFV (p<0.05), got less DM loss (p<0.05), and contained less fungi during conservation compared with no tedding (p<0.05). On the other hand, tedding too frequent caused more DM loss (p<0.05). In conclusion, for shorter drying process and higher quality of forage rye hay, tedding at 13:00∼17:00 for 1∼2 times per day was recommended in this study.

An experiment was carried out to determine the effect of cultivar and tedding frequency on changes of moisture content of oat(Avena sativa L.) hay during field drying and on quality of baled oat hay after storage. The experimental design was a split-plot