Hay Equipment: Balers & Rakes in Jasper, TX

Both hold a bale together, but they go on differently. Net wrap covers the outside of the bale in a few turns, so you wrap it and move on sooner. It holds the outer layer tight, which helps a bale shed rain while it sits outside. Twine goes around the bale in spaced bands and takes more turns to finish. Many balers can run either one, so check how the baler you're looking at is set up. Whichever you pick, store bales on high ground and off the dirt. Ask at our Buna store which setup a Vermeer baler there has.

Yes, once the ground's clean enough to run a rake and a baler over. Old stumps, roots and limbs are the trouble. A rake tine that catches a stump bends or snaps, and a baler's pickup can swallow a stick. Walk the field before first cutting and pull out what you can. Cut the grass a little high over rough spots. Jasper County's farm ground is a mix of woodland, pasture and crops, so pasture beside the trees is nothing unusual. Run slower than you would on open ground, and look over each windrow before the baler takes it.

Dry enough that it won't heat or mold in the bale. Hay baled too wet can heat up inside, spoil and, in a bad case, catch fire. Hay baled too dry drops its leaves, and the leaves carry much of the feed value. Twist a handful to test it. If it snaps and feels dry with no damp stems, it's getting close. A moisture tester takes out the guesswork. Rake once the top's dry and the dew is off, so the windrow can finish drying in the row. Humid days slow drying down, so watch the weather and give the hay time.

Our Buna store carries both lines, so you can compare them on one lot. Vermeer builds round balers along with wheel rakes and rotary rakes. Krone builds rotary rakes and round balers too. Each brand goes about the job its own way. The right one depends on your ground, your tractor and how much hay you put up. Look at how each rake carries its tines, how each baler's pickup rides, and what each needs from your tractor's PTO. The lot changes through the season, so call the store before you come to see one particular machine.

Set the tines so they just reach the hay without combing the dirt. Tines that drag the ground pull dirt and rocks into the windrow, and the baler takes them in. Match the windrow's width to your baler's pickup. A row wider than the pickup leaves hay lying on the ground. Keep your speed steady so the row stays even from one end of the field to the other. On gently undulating ground near Sandy Creek, check the tine height over the humps and dips. A rake that floats with the ground lays a row that's the same size the whole way.