The saying goes: make hay while the sun shines.
This surely came from farmers collecting bales of hay to make animal feed. Sungate Farms, which provides stock for one of Randfontein’s most loved food and vegetable grocers, grows food for humans as well as for animals.
They have been growing Eragrostis feed on 150 hectares of land for the past five years, and are hoping to bump it up to 400 in the next three years. Growing the feed seems a straightforward but lengthy process. It is fertilised once a year and is cut twice a year. It should be cut around March and again in December.
The process of getting the feed from the ground to the animals is as follows: the grass is cut with machines and the next day it is raked open for the sun to dry it. Then it is raked up and made into bales with a baling machine.
Storage is important for feed and should be stored in closed sheds to keep the bale fresh and green.
“Green bales are fresh bales,” said André Nunes from Sungate Farms.
The output of feed depends on the amount of rainfall throughout the year. Rainfall also plays big role when harvesting as it is preferable that harvests are done when the sun is shining.
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