I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.
The net wrap is really nice. It used to take me about 45-50 seconds with twine. With net wrap it takes less than 20 seconds to wrap.
Net is more expensive, but you save it on time and fuel.
Not many big squares around here. None of it is stacked inside.
Folks have found that round bales keep better outside than big squares, especially if you are going to carry over some hay.
Most people here try to have some carry over.
We used to bale at night since we never get a dew in the mornings. Now we cut one day and bale it the next. We keep the rake a couple hours ahead of the baler so that the fluffed up windrows dry a bit more.
Jim, that really is beautiful country and I love haying big fields like that!
Driest spring here in +100 years, just unbelievable. Plenty of wind though, seems like it blows everyday. Blowing 40-50mph right now so I said the hell with it and called it a day.
That wrap sure is nice for making a quick bale, I don't miss waiting for twine one bit! We have a pair of NH 7090's and don't rake anything. You can really put up the hay in a timely fashion when they are both running. Short window for dew around here and it burns of quick.
What wrap do you use?
We use Bridon Integra and it's okay but not as strong the Vermeer brand. No big deal most of the time but it'll rip pretty easy when the damn ice comes around. Good for alfalfa bales because they tend to stay together a lot better than hay barley or straw.
Round bales just work better for us as well. Easy to feed with the pickup and like you say they carryover better. Like you guys we are looking to put up 1000 ton but I'm sure we'll have to buy some as well. Our dryland hay barley is in dismal shape and I doubt we'll even cut it. Hell half of it didn't even come up. Layin' in dry ground for the last 45 days....
But we got everything watered on the riverbottom and I've been cutting a hellacious 1st cutting of alfalfa. It should average 2-3 ton/acre.
Blowing hard here too Sam. We never went to the field, thought about it a couple times and decided not too. This light hay would blow today, and if we got a fire going it might be in Wolf Point tonight.
We dont get a dew up here, about 10 miles south of the valley. We have to bale with some stem moisture. Sometimes a bit too much stem moisture!
We used the big rolls of John Deere wrap for a couple years. It was okay, but would have some trouble with damn near each roll. They were too heavy for anyone else but me...around 9000 feet.
Last year we switched to the Bridon stuff and really like it. Never have any trouble with it. Quite a bit lighter. We put on 2.2 wraps per the monitor.
I still use twine for straw and grain hay so they dont explode when frozen.
I am glad you are going to get a good first cutting. Most of the folks around here say their first will be poor. Some of them sprayed for weevils when they probably should have just gone ahead and cut it.
We have some organic wheat that looks okay. The lentils look okay too.
The safflower and conventional wheat are wrecks. Pretty much anything we seeded after the 15 of May is garbage.
We seeded into moisture but with wind every day it dried out past the seed. Only half a stand.
If we get some rain later we might work it up and plant millet or sorghum-sudan grass and try to sell it for hay.
Good looking fawn. I bet he was in the next swath over on the next round.
Nothing like a good ol binder. I run a 1586 for plowing and cutting tractor. Square bale with a Case 2290. Backup tractor is a John Deere 4020. Just finished round baking part of my coastal. 95 bales on 25 acres. Sudan made 124 on 32acres. We've had a fair year for rain finally. Thanks for the video. I enjoy seeing how other people farm. Always good to see a good ol international still being used.
That's a lot of bales to move. My neighbor's putting up small square straw bales. His brother has a contract with every Walmart in a seventy-five mile radius as well as a big farm store chain. I guess they make pretty good money off them. I never made anything off small squares. I still have my square baler out in the barn. I haven't used it in probably twenty years.
Is it weird if I look at that video and just wonder how I would have to adjust my hunting style if I lived out there? Put enough hay away as a youngster usually the one at the top of the mow getting all the dust from each bale coming off the elevator and working near the roof where it's a stifling 100 degrees with no air moving on a good day, that anything hay related makes me intentionally think of other things as an automatic defense mechanism to forget the torture. Lol.
One is alone in a land so vast, there is only the mountains, the wind, and the eyes of God.
My cousin is a lot bigger farmer than me. I had to go over there today and I was telling him and my Uncle about this video. The old 1086 was right outside the shed, broke down. Cuz says too much money to fix. Over $3000 just for tires. The sheet metal looks better than yours, but about everything else is done for. Just wore out.
He's got a nearly new John Deere (Kuhn) Disc Mower sitting in the shed. I pointed out his old disc mower laying in two pieces outside, to my son and said, "I got our disc mower a year after he got that one,". Jeff was amazed. Then later I realized that wasn't even the mower, it was the one he traded the original disc mower that was a year older than mine, off for." So it was a lot newer than mine. Mine is a New Idea, a company that got bought by Fiat and had their disc mowers re-branded Hesston. Cuz' second mower didn't last nearly as long as the first. I think mine is a '96. I think my baler must be a 2005.