Tedding is the agricultural process of spreading material in a field. The materials which are typically tedded include manure, which is spread to fertilize the land, and crops such as hay and flax, which are spread to dry them before they are collected.
Originally, this task would have been performed manually by farm labourers using tools such as pitchforks. In the 16th century, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, in his Boke of Husbandry, emphasised the importance of tedding for good hay:
In the 19th century, farm machinery was introduced such as the manure spreader and tedder, which would be pulled by horses, traction engines or tractors.
The handling of the crop will cause loss due to breakage of the plant, especially as it becomes dry and brittle. This especially affects the leaves of hay crops such as alfalfa and this is significant as they are more nutritious than the stems. These losses have been found to be 4% for alfalfa with a moisture level of 60% rising to 8% when dried to a moisture level of 40%.
There are different styles of tedding which vary in their emphasis on different actions: