Straw and hay in California?

[Woost2]

Reading an article "hay bale gardening" that is so bass-akwards I need to ask when someone talks about a bale of hay and a bale of straw in California, what are the bales apt to be? Small (regular for the rest of us), two string bales.

In my world "straw" is wheat. "Hay" is most apt to be a grass combo. Anything different would be noted. As in oat straw or alfalfa.

This article is saying straw is corn or soy.

[Quelah]

Straw can be wheat or oat straw here, general wheat. Our bales (both straw and hay) are 3 wire/strand. 2 wires my exist but I've never seen them for sale. 3 wire bales are 100-120 lbs, sometimes less if they were baled to be sold "by the bale", like hay baled specifically for feed stores is baled light

Grass hay is a relative new comer in CA, N Cal anyway. Didn't exist when I was a kid, everyone fed alfalfa or oat hay or combination thereof. The first time I ever saw grass hay and or timothy was when I went to the Pony Club Nationals in KY circa 1985 or something like that.

If they are talking about gardening with hay bales in CA they must mean oat or wheat hay (with the seed heads still attached). I think alfalfa would rot much to quickly, and rotting alfalfa is NASTY lol!

[Woost2]

Thanks. It's a mystery.

[Tarlo Farm]

Straw here in Michigan is oat or wheat. Hay is some kind of grass depending on the farmer and the field(s); alfalfa, timothy, brome, fescue, assorted other grasses. Bales range from "two string" 35# - 50#, and then the big round bales average 600#. Some farmers will custom-roll big bales to smaller sizes, but you have to buy a whole field full because farmers don't want to shlep around adjusting the balers any more than necessary. And nobody uses wire. Everyone uses twine of some kind, plastic or organic. My guy uses the classic twine on square bales (which are really rectangular and 50#) and plastic twine on his round baler.

[Woost2]

That's the midwest I know. About the only thing there is to do driving through Nebraska is look at hay. 20 years ago there were still stacks of a sort of meatloaf shape. And round bales. Now the stacks are gone and the round bales are being replaced by giant square bales.