Bush hogging cornstalks

[ericjeeper]

I recently rebuilt my 310 Long tractor engine.
I think rated at 28 PTO horse. I hooked up the six foot BH to it yesterday and mowed about 7 acres of stalks to be baled for hay. I wanted to put a good hard load on it to help seat the rings.
I did seem to notice an increase in power after about 3 hours.Boy was it dusty.. My eyes are sore this morning. Now to get it raked and round baled before the rain comes.

 

[N80]

Baling corn stalks? I've heard of this, but is it due to lack of 'real' hay or is it a regular thing.

 

[wbb]

Baled cornstalks work great as bedding for growing / fininshing hogs in a hoop building or, as we do, in portable buildings on pasture.

We use an all-in / all-out system so as soon as the hogs are sold from each lot, the used bedding gets spread back on the crop ground. In the future we will be composting the bedding first before spreading it.

If you set the bales up on end and cut the strings the hogs will spread it for you. ( and have what looks like a lot of fun doing it ).

Wheat straw is getting harder to find and more expensive. We don't raise much wheat ourselves anymore. All the wheat straw we produce is used as bedding for farrowing and small pigs. Again in portable buildings on pasture.

 

[N80]

Aren't corn stalks hard on a baler or do you use a special kind.

 

[ericjeeper]

Yes baling for feed. Hay is short in Indiana this year. So we are baling some stalks to subsidize the hay.
Big round bales.. Not not really hard on the baler. I would not want to square bale em..

 

[Bird]

I never baled any cornstalks myself, but had a neighbor who told me he didn't like to do it because it was too hard on the baler. I didn't ask for details. But I also thought if you were going to bale the cornstalks, you'd cut them with something other than a brush hog or rotary cutter to avoid chopping them up so finely. Is that not so?

Just in my vegetable garden, I mowed down all the stalks and vines with the brush hog at the end of the season, with the cornstalks and okra stalks being the biggest and toughest, but then I tilled them in after letting the brush hog chop them up.

 

[ericjeeper]

I never baled any cornstalks myself, but had a neighbor who told me he didn't like to do it because it was too hard on the baler. I didn't ask for details. But I also thought if you were going to bale the cornstalks, you'd cut them with something other than a brush hog or rotary cutter to avoid chopping them up so finely. Is that not so?

Just in my vegetable garden, I mowed down all the stalks and vines with the brush hog at the end of the season, with the cornstalks and okra stalks being the biggest and toughest, but then I tilled them in after letting the brush hog chop them up.

seeing how the combine mashes two out of six rows flat. you just about have to bush hog to get those two rows cut loose too.
By cutting them up will make them easier to eat.

 

[wbb]

Now if you want to do it right ...
Crop Shredder / Windrower
Loftness Crop Shredders, Fully-Mounted

I sure would like to have one of these - but ...
http://www.loftness.com/pdf/CropShredder_Prices.pdf

 

[oliver28472]

Corn stalks are being baled for feed here also. They won't shed water like fescue round bales so they have to be stored in a shed pretty quick. We are very dry this year.

Like that Ollie. Is it a 1650? My brother has a 1650, and a 1655. He is keeping a nice 1555 for our cousin, who also has a 1600.

 

[Bird]

If they're going to feed cornstalks, it's too bad they couldn't have done as is being done in the attached picture. A consortium of a half dozen dairies contracted to buy local corn crops while everything was still green. They had special combines that cut, choped, and/or crushed everything! They cut the stalks and processed the entire stalk, corn, cobs, etc. They told me there would not be a single kernal of corn that wasn't crushed. In the field, the dump trucks drove alongside the combines, then brought their loads across temporary scales to this "silo". For those who have never seen such, that's a concrete slab 301' long by 251' wide, open on both ends but with walls on both sides, and yes, that's those 8 wheeled articulated John Deeres spreading and packing 65,000 tons of silage 45' deep. When finished, they covered the whole thing with black plastic. Of course it's used for dairy cattle feed, but the guy who was manning the scales told me his hogs love it, too.

Incidentally, this was July 7, 2002, on S.H. 171 just a few miles southeast of Hillsboro, TX.

 

[Volfandt]

For a little humor, heres how I took care of the corn stalks on my -ahem- corn growing operation.
They'll get burned on holloween

 

[oliver28472]

Bird,
We still have a couple dairies around here but nothing like your picture. The stalks baled here were not cut for silage but did have the combine (corn picker) go through it before it was bush hogged and baled.

 

[wbb]

oliver28472
[/QUOTE]Like that Ollie. Is it a 1650? My brother has a 1650, and a 1655. He is keeping a nice 1555 for our cousin, who also has a 1600.[/QUOTE]


Yes it is a 1967 1650. One of my favorite tractors to drive. It is used mostly now as a chore and hay tractor. It has 8900 hours on it and runs very good. I'm looking for a matching 1850.

We store the cornstalk bales in an old open front shed - stacked 3 high. The ones we have to leave outside are set on high ground and covered with a tarp. These are used first.

 

[ericjeeper]

We harvested the corn. It made 140 bushels to the acre. which was pretty good for as dry as it was/is.

 

[oliver28472]

wbb, my brother's 1650 has the hydra power. He wishes it was the three speed like yours. I guess your engine is the direct injection like the 1655?

 

[wbb]

oliver28472

Actually my 1650 has the Hydra-Power (2 speed) also. Some of the late model 1650's came with the 3-speed (over-direct-under).

It has the 283 Waukesha diesel motor (has glow plugs).
We plug in the block heater for a couple of hours and it starts right up in the winter.
The Waukesha sure sounds nice when you fire it up in the morning.

I would like to find a Perkins powered 1850/1855.


*more on baling cornstalks*

The neighbor that bales cornstalks for us has a fairly new John Deere baler. He said that any John Deere from the 530 model and newer should be able to handle cornstalks.

 

[Bird]

wbb, your picture sure looks like the Oliver I used baling hay. I think it was a 1755 (not sure now), but I am sure it was a 6 cylinder diesel, supposedly about 80hp and 1972 vintage, with 6 forward and 2 reverse gears plus the 3 speed "Hydraulshift" I was thinking it said on the side of the hood. The hour meter showed about 5,000 hours when the neighbor bought it, but it was a very nice and reliable machine.

 

[oliver28472]

Right, the hood decal is what I was going on.