Hay Perservative - I'm a Beliver.....

As I mentioned in the 2017 photos thread, I lied. Weakened by potential hay sales lost due to not cutting, I made a second cut on my Timothy mixed grass hay field. Have had a buffered propionic acid applicator on my handy JD348 square baler, but never used it. With the Agtronix BH-2 bale chamber reading 20-25% moisture (including acid and some dense bales), I switched on the acid. Nasty smelling stuff - especially if you were stacking on a wagon in tow by the baler.

Very concerned about the bales heating - even with the acid. Was unable to check the bales for 2 full days and did so just a few minutes ago. The bales are completely cold! Simply amazing! No heat or musty smell and really the acid vinagar smell has diminished a lot.

This hay preservative is a game changer.

Wrestled with how to mount the nozzles when I installed the system. The JD square baler design's auger often stands the hay up on the back side of the pick-up throat just before the packer fork grabs it (nice tall charge of hay going into the bale chamber and IMHO accounts for much of the brick like bales inherent to a JD baler) and sometimes the throat of the pick-up will fill up with hay on the plunger side half way across it - again, very good for the packer fork to take a full charge of hay to be baled. Problem is - when you have a wad of hay bunching, how do you evenly apply preservative? To remedy this, I mounted the two nozzles on the pick-up guard (for lack of a better name) and pointed them downward at a slight angle onto the tines/tine guards. It works great as when the pick-up tines grab the hay, it is broken loose - the windrow fractured and greatly opens the interior if the windrow to the acid. Coverage is outstanding IMHO.

Two nozzles cover most of width of the pick-up given the spray pattern and distance to the hay. This is sort of a poor man's automation in terms of varying the acid application. Each nozzle is set for 4 lbs acid per ton of hay on this day. If I get into a wider/heavier windrow, more acid is applied as the hay fills up the windrow width. Anything not hitting the hay goes goes onto the down slope of the pick-up guards and some of it between them and to the ground. No pooling of acid anywhere. There is an on/off switch for when we don't need the acid, i.e. exiting the windrows on a turn. This scheme wastes some acid, but is many times cheaper than an automated system, which wouldn't pencil out for our hay volumes. As I said, poor man's automation.



Thought I'd share - YMMV

Bill

Hay Perservative - I'm a Beliver.....