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Central Kansas | I started baling at 0500 this a.m. on 14 acres of upland alfalfa....3rd cut. Terrace channels and a few swaths up were nice, heavy hay...farther up the lands it got to the point that after dry down AND raking, I had disappearing windrows. Swathed with a 14' head, double raked, JD 348 twine-tie baler and an old Farmhand accumulator. In the heavy windrows I decided to count strokes per bale....and in 3rd gear on a JD 3020, would get 16-18 strokes per bale...and they will be 75-80 pounders. Moisture tester indicated 17% until toward the end.
Took me just under 2 hours to bale these crooked lands, about 1/4 of it was in 5th gear and looking for the windrow. Some of those bales had FORTY strokes in them and a few tended toward banannas...but not too bad. I got 193 bales or about 15 ton. So......I guess what I am saying is.....if you have nice windrows of essentially the same size, then this stroke business might get you a more consistent bale in size and weight. My old clunking outfit doesn't do too bad but I don't use a bale wagon either. The point is....it really depends on where you are doing your haying and what type of yield you are seeing. In this arid part of Kansas....I would hate to see some young guy trying to get only 18 strokes per bale on this cutting of hay....he would have to be road gear a lot of the time.
It has never been more evident to me how diverse this farming stuff is...even if we are just putting up alfalfa hay with a little square baler. I would doubt there are 1/2 doz guys in this county who even know the size of their little square baler chamber...or how many strokes per minute it is rated for, let alone, how many strokes they are getting per bale. Next time I think I will count the number of strokes per field and then divide that by the number of bales.....that would be my average per bale. On the other hand.....the heck with it. | |
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small square baler capacity
