Direct Baling of Straw

As a youngster in the late 1950's, my uncle had a Claas combine that had a small square baler incorporated to bale straw.

Today a small square baler could not keep up with a combine so here is one solution to achieve the one pass operation , heading, threshing, winnowing and baling residue.


Glenvar is a fairly large farm in Western Australia's Wheatbelt with individual properties spread over a large part of the wheatbelt. It is owned and run by the Shields family.
Te Shields family have proven to be innovators in machinery, agricultural practices and marketing, including developing markets for crop residue.
One major issue in continuous cropping is weed seed residue and if not dealt with the real prospect of developing herbicide resistance, so the Shields family progressed from residue carts to direct baling of residue.

Crops include: wheat, oats canola and lupins. Lupins are a legume fixing nitrogen and have a high protein grain, used mainly for stockfeed until now but there is a growing development for human consumption. The residue makes excellent garden mulch.
The link for wheat harvest:

https://youtu.be/T81UZ75qchI

The balers on the back of the headers (Combines) are featured.

The Bale Direct System with promotional videos:

http://ift.tt/1VyzQkL

The system is marketed in the US:

https://youtu.be/ODEeMIB--Fg

In Canola the farms harvested 13,000 hectares. One hectare is approximately 2.47 acres. so 13,000 Ha = 32,000 acres.
Promotional material is from Claas since 5 Claas combines were used in that year's canola harvest:

https://youtu.be/ODEeMIB--Fg

What Claas does not tell you, the business seems to have most manufacturers represented among the Glenvar combines.

Direct Baling of Straw