Hay Baler Converted To Handle Cotton

Hay Baler Converted To Handle Cotton BALERS A Kansas equipment maker and his Texas cotton-growing friend are saving time and money by using a cotton stripper and a large square baler to make bales of cotton The $30 000 system is a great alternative to the $700 000 CP690 cotton harvester and baler from Deere     “This idea lets cotton producers in the Great Plains use existing equipment to bale cotton ” says Larry Matlack Stinger Inc “Great Plains growers have years where the cotton yield is so low that running a $700 000 machine through the field doesn’t make sense ”     Matlack acknowledges that the Deere stripper/baler is faster and requires less labor than a conventional system     “You have guys waiting for the stripper basket to fill before it’s dumped in the boll buggy Then the cotton is fed into the module maker and once the module is formed it has to be tarped ” explains Matlack “It takes a lot of time and extra labor With our setup we bale directly off the stripper We make a bale twice as dense as the module and appears to resist rain without tarping ”     Matlack is an old hand at making things work faster and more economical for farmers He and his brother Bill started Stinger to make big square-bale retrieval equipment Vol 17 No 5 and low-cost bale handling equipment Vol 23 No 2 The company grew from ideas for making hay handling easier on the family farm The company expanded on its initial ideas and now has equipment in use from California to New York     For cotton baling Matlack teamed up with Heath Kimbrell a Texas cotton grower and the son of an old friend Kimbrell had been frustrated with existing equipment Spending $700 000 on a new harvester was not an option when his year-to-year cotton acreage can vary from 600 to 2 000 acres     Kimbrell’s first idea was to mount a stripper header on the front of a tractor pulling the baler He and Matlack decided that wasn’t practical and switched to the stripper/baler system The concept is similar to using a grain cart with a combine     When the stripper basket is full the baler operator pulls alongside A conveyor bed attached to the rear of the stripper sends the cotton bolls to a matching conveyor feeding the baler     “We wanted to let producers get the job done more efficiently without spending a lot of money ” says Matlack “We used a Deere 7460 stripper and 3 by 4 or 4 by 4 big square balers from various AGCO brands ”     Kimbrell and Matlack tested their concept on crops in 2018 and again in 2019 It worked great Their 4 by 4 bales averaged around 14 lbs per cu ft That’s nearly twice as dense as the modules produced by conventional systems     “We were using older balers with shorter chambers and we were averaging 1 700 lb bales ” says Matlack “We expect a newer baler with the longer chamber and restrictor plates to increase density Then our 4 by 4 bale would run around 1 900 lbs ”     Another advantage of the big square bales is that they are easy to load on a flatbed and can be stacked higher than modules for a bigger payload This gives growers more options     “You can take your cotton to a gin that pays a better price or does a better job ” says Matlack “During harvest nearby gins may be full but other gins farther away are open With the cotton bales you can take your cotton where you want and get it ginned so you can get paid or get a loan on it ”     Another beauty of the Stinger modulator is the ability to remove the conveyors to return the stripper and baler to their original designs     Matlack plans to have some units available for sale in time for this season’s harvest     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Stinger Inc 302 Dean St Burrton Kan 67020 ph 620-465-2683 or toll-free 800-530-5304; www stingerltd com

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