Home Made Hay Perservative Applicator

Bill VA

Well-known Member
Anyone made their own hay preservative applicator for their small square baler? Might put into hay for next year about 3 acres that is a long strip pretty much shaded on the sun side by a line of trees. Drying will likely be an issue - thinking about a preservative.

I've got a spanking new Femco 15 gallon spot sprayer I bought several years ago - still in the box. I'm thinking about mounting it to the baler, adding a tee into the hose and rigging two spray tips over the pick-up - spraying the hay as it comes into the baler. Maybe there's a better way?

The pump is 12V electric, thinking I might need a pressure regulator/gauge to meter the flow based on application rate.

What do you think? Do-able or should I be buying something off-shelf?

Anyone made their own hay preservative applicator for their small square baler?

Thanks!
Bill
 
A couple of guys I know of mounted it on their moco. They put it under the hood in front of the disks so it sprayed it as they cut it. They said if given two different bales they will go for the one that has been sprayed every time.

I didn't look too close but they mounted a Femco type tank and ran a bar with a couple of TeeJet nozzles on it up under the moco. If I remember right they put in a backflow valve with an orafice to control volume. You could get high tech and put a controller in the cab like my fertilizer applicator for the planter has. It also has a switch that turns it off when the implement is lifted. Those are all items from Sprayer Specialty.
 

Most of those 12 volt pumps have a pressure shut off switch built into the pump. Some of the switches can be adjusted to various pressure levels. Adding a small bladder tank will help average out the pressure pulses. Adding a pressure regulator should provide for a steady pressure

The flow through any given nozzle will vary as the square root of the pressure. For example: If the pressure setting is 16 Psi (square root = 4), to double the flow rate you would increase pressure setting to 64 Psi (square root = 8 ).
 
I have never been around a unit that has had this on it. What are the chemical qualities. Is it corrosive? I know some people might put rock salt between bales as they stack them away to prevent mildew. Just how "wet"/ green/ uncured can the hay be and successfully use the preservative. School me please. gobble
 
Friend of mine bales Alfalfa hay at %21-%18 moisture using granules known as "Culbac Hay".

Works very well, he is "fully trusting" in stacking them in a barn. Cows L O V E the stuff, I imagine it is VERY nutritious!!! ;)
 
Many years ago, a young innovative friend rigged up a spray bar over the pickup of his nice NH baler. I don't know what chemical he was using, but in just a couple of years, the front of his once shiny baler was a nasty rusty mess. Hopefully they use something less corrosive in the modern world.
 
What your wanting to do will work. The trouble is the most common preservative is an acid base product. It will literally ruin a baler in a just a few years. There is another granular product that you apply with a Gandy electric box applicator and let it drop into the back of the pickup cross feed.
 
Off the shelf systems simply use an off the shelf electric pump, probably the same as you have... then you need a brass regulator and an appropriate sized spray nozzle for the amount of solution you want to apply. If you get into real fancy systems then they would have a rate controller that is tied to an in chamber moisture tester.. but I think for what you describe, a basic system using what you have would work just fine.

Rod
 
http://www.harvesttec.com/pdfs/manual/438-439-13-OPR.pdf

Here is a link to a manual for a harvest tec system. It has all the calibration tables that you need starting on Page 16. The numbers under the nozzle colors are standard Tee-jet nozzle part numbers. They should be easy to buy from any sprayer parts dealer. I would stick with Tee-jet since the hard work is already done for you.

A couple of points to consider.

1-The pump will need to be set up as regulated by-pass system. The volume of liquid that you are using is extremely small. No spot sprayer pump is that small. Second, I've tried the bladder approach mentioned below, and it does not provide satisfactory results.
2-Realistically choose a nozzle setup that will allow you to run 25psi to 35psi.
3-I'd probably choose a since nozzle system on a small baler. Two nozzles give better coverage, but the small tips like to plug even with screens in my experience.

I'm actually rebuilding the automatic system on my big square baler right now and improving on a few design faults of the original automatic system. Automatic is theoretically nice, but generally not worth the money with a good operator running a machine IMHO.

Good Luck preservative systems are fairly simple once you get the hang of them.
Manual
 
They are likely spraying a desiccant rather than preservative? Propionic acid is the common preservative, well nowadays buffered propionic acid so it doesn't rot out your baler and it will evaporate from hay laying out in the sun. It evaporates in storage too gradually.
 
I used the same setup to make a liquid applicator for my blower and silage bagger.I had to make a return line and a hand valve to adjust the pressure.We timed it with strait water then weighed a load of silage and figured our unload time to get the right amount on.Tom
 
Thats all the commercial systems are, is an electric spray tank. I did the opposite, used the preservative tank for spot spraying in the off season. A couple tips, put your spray bar out in front of the pickup so overspray lands on the ground and not the baler. And clean the baler out after you use the preservative. Do Not leave any treated hay in a baler, that is what causes the rust.
 

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