chopping corn stover

[footballjdtractor]

Has anyone ever tried to chop whats left after the combine harvests the grain? I was thinking that if the spreader was shut off and the combine made a windrow that a hayhead might be able to pick it up. Would the long stalks damage the pickup fingers on the head? I was just thinking it might be a cheap fiber that could be mixed with wet ddgs to make a decent feed.

 

[TexasBred]

Has anyone ever tried to chop whats left after the combine harvests the grain? I was thinking that if the spreader was shut off and the combine made a windrow that a hayhead might be able to pick it up. Would the long stalks damage the pickup fingers on the head? I was just thinking it might be a cheap fiber that could be mixed with wet ddgs to make a decent feed.

Folks shredded, windrowed and baled about every corn stalk in this country this year. Rough as he77 on the equipment but better than nothing.

 

[Bigfoot]

They used to make a stacker that worked great for stalks. You had to buy a little trailer with a chain system like on an old manure spreader. You backed under the stack with the trailer tilted to load it, the unloaded it by tilting the trailer and reversing the chain. My neighbor has both. No telling how old it is. He breaks it out during droughts to help supplement. Im not sure what the nutrients would be on stalks, but would be better than snowballs. Combines used to leave a few ears back in the day when this thing made. Now they get almost every ear.

 

[bigbull338]

They used to make a stacker that worked great for stalks. You had to buy a little trailer with a chain system like on an old manure spreader. You backed under the stack with the trailer tilted to load it, the unloaded it by tilting the trailer and reversing the chain. My neighbor has both. No telling how old it is. He breaks it out during droughts to help supplement. Im not sure what the nutrients would be on stalks, but would be better than snowballs. Combines used to leave a few ears back in the day when this thing made. Now they get almost every ear.

hesston an JD both made stackers back in the 70s.we had the hesston 30A stacker for a few years.we had 2 stack movers an a friend of ours bought the stack hauler your talking about.there was 1 thing bad about them,if the wind blew hard it would mess the stacks up.

 

[ABrauny]

Two words: flail chopper.

 

[inbredredneck]

I use these to prepare my stover for baling.

http://www.artsway-mfg.com/products/shr ... formation/

 

[TexasBred]

I use these to prepare my stover for baling.

http://www.artsway-mfg.com/products/shr ... formation/

Looks like it would do a great job.

 

[fargus]

Do you use a V-rake after the shredder so you can gather more of it up? Or just run the baler through it and get what you get?

 

[mikegahr]

I'm still baling milo stalks when it is dry enough and all i do is run a bushhog and rake and bale. We are thinking about taking a disc mower and cut then rake then hit with a bushhog a few more trips but you will get more product.

 

[iowafarmer]

We bale a couple hundred round bales of corn stalks every year for bedding and feeding. We run a stalk chopper behind a tractor with a V-rake of the same width attached right behind the stalk chopper. Then a tractor and baler runs a little behind that. Works great. It is harder on the baler pickup than bailing hay. It's really hard on the pickup if you just try to bale the stalks with out chopping or raking. It's pretty hard on your rake if you don't run a stalk chopper first. It's just harder on your equipment overall if you don't run a stalk chopper first. The reason we sometimes don't use a stalk chopper is that a rake alone will leave more stalks behind. This is important to us for soil conservation and nutrient removal rates when it comes to applying manure and fertilizer.

 

[inbredredneck]

Do you use a V-rake after the shredder so you can gather more of it up? Or just run the baler through it and get what you get?

we rake it, hybrid and variety determine windrow size same as hay.