Baling corn stalks question

Im baling corn stalks in a week or so and I have a question. I have two options to cut them. A two row john Deere green chopper or a 10 foot woods rotary mower. I think the green chopper would be better because of the flails. Rotary mower will chop it too fine. what do ou guys think.

Joe

You should leave some residue ,That said , I use a 5 wheel rake and rake doubles , round that up with a nh 846 chain baler , Vermeer and jd belt balers will make you loose your religion , ,But EVERY YEAR AND CROP behaves differently ,

In my experiance.....you want the stalks in as little pieces as possible.....I bale with a New Holland BR740A (belt) it will bale them fine, but it is a LOT slower process than baling hay.

I have no problems baling corn stalks with my JD belt baler. When I bale corn or milo stalks I just shred them with a 15 ft batwing cutter and rake with my 14 wheel bi-fold rake. Then I bale them with my JD467 at the same speed 5-6 mph as I do grass hay.

I agree with chopping it up as fine as you can. They'll eat more of it.

The green chopper will actually chop them finer than the rotary cutter. It is closer to a regular stalk chopper.

For the poster that said that a JD belt baler will have trouble. I don't know what he is talking about. We bale 10-15 thousand corn stalk bales each fall. We bale them that have been shredded with a flail shredder and those that have been cut with a rotary cutter. The rotary cutter usually has the longest stalks. We rake with a 16 wheel rake. That make a large windrow. You do not have to weave much. In good dry corn stalks we can bale a bale a minute.

He maybe tried baling them with an old close throat baler. Like a JD 510 or Vermeer 605C. Then you will have trouble. The old NH chain balers will bale them but make a ragged looking bale.

If you are shredding the stalks you should use mesh wrap. Twine will make moving them a real pain. They will fall apart.

The balers are a JD 567 and a JD 568. The JD 567 will have over thirty thousand bale through it after this season. I am going to either have to replace all the belts, chains, and sprockets or trade it for another baler. I will more than likely trade it for a good used JD 568. The round baler market around here is kind of soft.

We use both but for round baling prefer the flail chopper with the back door open.We chop some with a forage harvester and those have to be cut with a bushog or they will be to fine and the hay head will kick them forward rather than feed them in.We have also cut some with an ald discbine with bad rolls.

We use a 8 row chopper and pull a 12 wheel rake and also can bale 45-50 bales an hour. We bale with a Vermer corn stalk special and have no problems baling. I think it also depends which style hammers you have on chopper, how fine the stalks get. We don't bale as much as JDseller does, but we are only getting a little over 2 bales per acre this year. Last it was 4-5 bales per acre. A little rain makes a big difference. Harold