Question for Deere Square Baler Owners

I've got a hay preservative applicator on my JD348. The nozzles are mounted on the top front face of the baler as the hay comes into the auger off the pick-up. Works fine.

What I don't like is - much of the time, the hay doesn't cover the pick-up or when I'm going around the ends of a windrow, there is no hay being fed into the baler - as such, I'm spraying buffered propionic acid on the the baler vs hay. My system is on/off and I turn it off at the end of the windrows, but while all seems good with my present set-up, can't explain it - just don't like dumping the buffered propionic acid on the baler sheet metal and then down into the pick-up and auger area, even though I know the buffered acid shouldn't cause rust.

What I'm thinking about is relocating the nozzles to the forward most part of the windguard over the pick-up such that if and when the buffered propionic acid is not hitting the hay, it is falling to the ground in front of the pick-up and not all over my baler. IMHO - this minimizes the clean-up too as only the hay gets sprayed, any dry hay wicks up whatever residue is in the throat/auger area.

Question is (and I'm drawing a blank) - is the forward bar of your JD baler's windguard pushing against the windrow or is the hay well under it such that one might get a decent spray angle with a set of tips mounted there. I know this wouldn't work for my New Holland 68 as a narrow pick-up demands a tall windrow and sometimes I think hay is going to come over top of the windguard on that baler! The 348 pick-up is much wider and I can't remember what's going on with the hay and windguard. Youtube videos of the 347 and 348 that I've seen appear to have a goodly amount of vertical distance between the hay and the front cross tube of the windguard.

What say you?

Thanks,
Bill

Your hay is going to carry acid throughout the baler. If you start looking around with an indicator you'll find acid all over even places hay deoesn't come thru baler. Your best bet is to power wash entire unit and dry after each use.

On my 336 the forward arm is ahead of the rising hay. The arms attached to it are a couple feet long and arched and curved and it would take a very high windrow to scrape the bar.

Bill,

Find a baler in a farm type junk yard and you'll see why you will never want to use prop acid again.Years ago, we tried different preservatives and almost immediately rejected prop acid because of the intense rusting on the baler and inside the bale chamber. We did find some powdered product that needed to be mixed with water and run through the same pump and spray nozzles. It is a product used by the commercial bread baking industry, and is quite safe for the animals, they even liked the taste of that hay better than any other. It made our hay very saleable. Right now, I can't remember the name of the product.

For about the last 10 years, we do not use any preservative product. For some customers, that is a selling point. We do use the Delmhorst moisture meters in the bale chamber which reads out in the tractor cab. If the moisture exceeds 18%, we go to a dryer part of the field. The 18% is based on our experience with stacking hay immediately into barns and not forming mold dust.

Another tip we learned is to stack bales with the twines on the sides, not top and bottom. Stack with the cut side up and the hay breathes out some moisture through the cut stems. Any cut alfalfa or red clover will have stem moisture which needs to escape or else mold forms inside the stems.

Good Luck with your last cutting. We finished on Monday Oct 3, probably hit 30,000 bales this year.

Paul in MN

Paul,

Thanks for the info. If I recall correctly you are baling with a JD 327 and 328. 30,000 bales is impressive!

The older propionic acid would definitely rust out a baler. The newer acid is buffered and has a PH near rain water - as I'm to understand and as such doesn't cause rust anymore than water. I got my buffered propionic acid from the New Holland dealer. The same manufacture makes it for JD, Agco and NH/CaseIH. A link to the website is below.

Are you finding hay from your windrows bumping against the front of your wind guard over your JD baler's pickup?

We would only use acid to save a crop of hay, i.e. storms are coming and the hay is higher in humidity, i.e. 18-22%. I run a bale chamber mounted Agtronix BH-2 moisture meter as I bale too. I'm going to try to cut some Teff hay next week and due to the nature of Teff to rehydrate, will use acid if it is not ultra dry. Also plagued at this time with cooler temps, less daylight and very heavy dew.

Thanks!
Bill

Bill,

Sorry about not getting back sooner. We have been trying to deliver the last 15 wagon loads to different customers. The ones with gravel drives right up to the barn are fine, but the barns with only a dirt drive are like quicksand (but we have heavy clay that turns to calf sn0t). So I have had to stand by with a tractor to pull out son's PU with attached hay wagon. The people need the hay, but with this much rain we are having one heck of a time delivering it.

As to the prop acid, we did try the buffered acid about 20 years ago, certainly better than the non-buffered stuff, but our customers didn't like it. It bleached out the hay and smelled bad. Our customer's horses have gotten spoiled by the good hay we usually provide. It did less damage to the balers than the non-buffered product, but we still noticed accelerated rusting and almost immediate paint damage.

Yes, we are running a 327 and a 328, with another 328 as backup. I don't think we ever pull through windrows so big that the hay crowds the front of the wind guard. On occasion, a big clump will touch the front, but with risk of jamming the cross auger. If I stop forward motion, it will usually pull it through, but on some occasions I have jammed it enough that the auger moves up to the top of its chamber and gets stalled. That usually requires shut down and pulling everything out. But I don't recall breaking any shear pins this year.

If I could find a good used 348 for reasonable price, I'd buy it (or 2 of them).

Best of luck as you finish up your season.

Paul in MN