A method for determining the degree of cure in forages using a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique. An NMR instrument is used to determine the amount of bound moisture (typically called stem moisture) and free moisture (typically called dew moisture) the degree of which can be used to determine how cured the forage is. This method represents an improvement on the traditional ways of determining how cured a forage is. The traditional ways have been by twisting a bunch of forage in ones hands or using a mechanical method (Hammer of fingernail) to determine if there is too much stem moisture in the stem nodes. The method can be applied using a portable instrument or building the instrument into a forage harvesting machine such as a hay baler.