Baling hay has always been a very manual process with baler operators following the windrow and managing speed to optimize productivity. But with increasing innovation, baler operators now no longer have to spend their days twisting and turning in the tractor seat and riding the throttle to constantly manage bale making.
At New Holland, innovation has been the key to driving baling productivity says the company’s head of crop production and hay and forage, Laurent Libbrecht. In this report from Agritechnica 23, Libbrecht and RealAgriculture’s Bernard Tobin take a look at the New Holland BigBaler 1290 High Density, which the company says will produce 3 X 4 big squares up to 22 per cent more dense than standard conventional big bales.
Libbrecht says the addition of New Holland’s IntelliSense bale automation offers the potential for greater productivity, bale quality, fuel efficiency and operator comfort by automating key baler and tractor functions. The system won a Silver Medal Award at Agritechnica and is now available for New Holland Big Baler Plus range and Big Baler High Density models for 2024.
Operating a Big Baler manually demands long hours of continuous operator focus, with regular steering adjustment to follow the swath, plus observation of swath density and crop flow to prevent overloads and blockages, and changing the tractor speed to match, says Libbrecht. In addition, the driver must observe the bale fill indicator and correct the tractor steering accordingly, while also monitoring bale slice numbers and weights.
With IntelliSense, Libbrecht says New Holland can now reduce the demands on the operator by automating tractor steering according to the swath path, and automatically adjusting speed based on swath volume. See the video below.
RealAgriculture’s coverage of Agritechnica is brought to you by Optimum GLY, a new canola trait technology from Corteva Agriscience.
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