Vinyard hay harvest

[Themandownunder]

I live in the adelaide hills South Australia
The area has thousands of acres of vinyards. I also cut hay in the area. Because of the drought and feed shortages the price of a small hay square is now $12 plus
The vinyards(myself included) normally just slash the laneways and leave it for mulch
The lanes are normally 5 to 6' wide, irrigated and sheltered by the vines so provide a nice green crop of meadow hay (rye clover etc)
Has anyone seen any machinary taylor made for harvesting in one cut. The problem with hay is that is has to left on ground to dry for several days
I've considered a sickle style mower on the front with maybe a catcher following behind
Even wondered if there was such a thing as a procees which can dry the grass in line via a blower and feed it into a processor that would pelletise the material into nuggets or weetabix style biscuits that would be dry enough to bag
The feed would have to be dry enoug to store
The vinyards have lots of towable grape bins and trailers that could be utilised
that are only used for a short period of time
There was a time when feed like this wasn't worth cutting but price hikes have changed all that
Get your thinking caps on guys.........and girls of course

 

[zzvyb6]

Gooday, Mate !

I've seen machinery which cut in the morning and baled after a hot day's drying using a 'baler' type of device and a microwave oven-chamber heater dryer. The water came out as steam which dribbled out onto the ground. It then went into a conventional baler (big squares). The unit took a lot of hp to run the electric/microwave evaporator. This was a college project back in Illinois. The bales came out so green that you could believe they were dyed.

Another notion was to square bale the hay after moisture fropped to 25 - 20 % after 1 hot day and then stack them in drying shelves in a barn with a rolling floor. A huge fan at the tail end pulled the moisture level down to non-spoilage levels. I suppose the other options are to green chop it and compress the moisture out of it such that it would make up your pellets or nuggets. I suppose some heat is also necessary to further preserve it. Not sure what that would do to the nutrients.

Finally, could you add a preservative acid (proprionic) to stop the mold? Cows will accept this, horses won't. Not sure about sheep or goats.

If you could stash the hay into a grain dryer for a while, it would come out clean and dry, but the loading and unloading makes that notion a bit clumsy.

Maybe you could put it into super compressed bales and then vacuum pack it to prevent spoilage. The best solution involves chopping because the equipment is all set to fit into the vinyard lanes. It would just blow into a following truck to be taken to a processing site. YouTube has some Euro machinery that demonstrates this equippment in action.

Howzat?

 

[Themandownunder]

trawling the net I found a site that was developing a machine for India. It cut pulverised and turned it into 40mm pellets that went into a hopper.
It was designed for carting compressed feed for long distances in trucks and storage for times of drought
Unfortunately my link crashed and for some reason I couldnt find it again
I think that the company began with A and was to do with the american science blah blah blahresearchwhatever
I'll just keep searching
I have found a mini baler from Italy that may do the job
Anyone tried one - designed for the horse owner - which put me off as these tend to have to many dollars to spend and horse normally equates to more profit for the dealers

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Around here are vineyards are worth a lot more then hay fields. I would not even start to mess around with possibly damaging the vineyard for this type of project. Plus you are pulling nutrients away from the vineyard which will have to be replaced in the form of fertilizer. It just doesn't seem cost effective or practical.

You may also run into potential problems with horse owners not wanting that hay if they know you spray the vineyard any amount.

If you already have conventional hay equipment, use the money you were going to have to spend on new equipment to buy some more ground and put it into hay. You will be further ahead in the end.

 

[Themandownunder]

You are probably right robert the vinyard owners are a funny lot. I only have 5 acres of vines - which were in when I bought the property. I would rip them out but that would be a financial no no in real estate terms
I just find it hard to see my neighbours dairy collapsing around him - 5 dead cows this week through starvation while all the rich companies run these overwatered juice producers
Luckily I contract Hay and had plenty for my stock - Red Angus but the neighbours feed bill on his dairy went from 80k to $250k for 12 months on 200 head. He's given up and his place is a dustbowl from overgrazing
i've just sold my haygear and am switching to landclear up with a positrack. Lots of desolate farms that are being broken up into your 10 acre house blocks that all need fencing and grading
The thread was just something I had a bee in my bonnet about so its good to get negative feedback
I actually run my cows and sheep to graze of my vines as its Autumn here - just before pruning. Cleans it all up and fertilizes as it goes

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I have Concords and some Niagara grapes and will be expanding the Concords next year. We can average around $1k a acre per year off of our Concords where as my hay ground I am lucky if I can make $300 per acre (on average).

A lot of the guys here have started planting wine grapes and you can make a lot of money with them if the market holds long enough for the vineyard to get established. But they require a lot of attention compared to Concords.

 

[flusher]

I live in the adelaide hills South Australia
The area has thousands of acres of vinyards. I also cut hay in the area. Because of the drought and feed shortages the price of a small hay square is now $12 plus
The vinyards(myself included) normally just slash the laneways and leave it for mulch
The lanes are normally 5 to 6' wide, irrigated and sheltered by the vines so provide a nice green crop of meadow hay (rye clover etc)
Has anyone seen any machinary taylor made for harvesting in one cut. The problem with hay is that is has to left on ground to dry for several days
I've considered a sickle style mower on the front with maybe a catcher following behind
Even wondered if there was such a thing as a procees which can dry the grass in line via a blower and feed it into a processor that would pelletise the material into nuggets or weetabix style biscuits that would be dry enough to bag
The feed would have to be dry enoug to store
The vinyards have lots of towable grape bins and trailers that could be utilised
that are only used for a short period of time
There was a time when feed like this wasn't worth cutting but price hikes have changed all that
Get your thinking caps on guys.........and girls of course

Agriquip (a Japanese outfit) makes small hay baling equipment that can be used in orchards

AGRIQUIP.com

You can see them in action on YouTube

YouTube - Small square hay baler-THB series