Hay
Grass and other plants cut and dried in the field to feed cattle in winter or the dry season.
Also: fodder, dry fodder
Hay is grass, clover, lucerne or other forage cut while green, dried in the sun and stored. It is the traditional winter feed of cattle in cold countries and dry-season feed in hot ones. Haymaking needs a spell of dry weather, so in wetter places farmers turn hay on the field or dry it on racks, poles and fences, as in the Alps, Norway and the Carpathians. Old hay meadows cut once a year late in summer are now valued for their wild flowers. In South Asia the dry stalks of grain crops, such as wheat straw and the stover of sorghum and pearl millet, are a major cattle feed.