A Profitable Combination 

The combination of a Krone tedder, rake and baler has enabled a Scottish contracting firm to reduce the cost of its round baling operation and increase output significantly.

It started with a tedder, the first machine AB Gairns Contractors bought in its quest to increase the output of its round baling operation. It is one of the services offered by the Comrie-based firm of general contractors, which has been working throughout Perthshire and the surrounding area for more than 40 years. The Gairns also have a 500-head sheep flock and grow 300 acres of barley for malting.

In 2012, between its own requirements and the contract work, the number of bales the company's two balers made in grass silage, hay, and a small amount of haylage, had risen to 20,000 bales/year. There was also straw from the arable ground, some for bedding their animals, the bulk for sale.

Explaining the reason for their investment in the tedder, Stuart Gairns says: “We were spreading the crop behind our 2.8m-cut mower-conditioner with a Haybob; it had an output of only 5 acres an hour, so we were chasing our tail. We were looking for a tedder that would enable us to increase output and, as importantly, spread the crop more evenly.”

After demonstrations from a number of manufacturers they chose a 6-rotor Krone KW782. “We considered it to have the best combination of strength and build quality,” Stuart says. “It spread the grass more uniformly and as it enabled us to spread three mower swaths in one pass it doubled the output of the operation.”

The next issue was that the Haybob took too long to row the crop back up in front of the balers. This problem was solved through trading in one of the balers against a Krone Swadro 46 single rotor rake and a Krone Comprima V150XC variable chamber round baler. Keeping one of the old balers gives them a back-up and the flexibility to work on two contracts at the same time.

“Although the KW rake gave us flexibility and increased output as it enabled us to make a single 4.6m bout or bring three 3m rows into a single swath, the balers couldn't handle the larger volume of material,” Stuart explains.“We had a Comprima F 125 fixed chamber on demonstration but the bale diameter was slightly smaller than that of the previous baler, so when they were working together there were problems with stacking.”

They liked the idea of the Comprima's NovoGrip elevator – rubber treaded fabric belts in combination with horizontal slats, which Stuart says is a good compromise between a belt and a roller baler - and being able to alter the bale diameter from 90cm – 1.5m in 1cm increments, through fine tuning via the control terminal in the tractor cab. Not only did this mean they could better meet their customers' requirements and make stacking more uniform, it also enabled them to bring some work back in-house.

“Most of our customers like a 1.25 or a 1.3m bale but we have one customer who wants 90cm bales for horses; we used to have to sub-contract this out, we can now do it ourselves,” says Stuart, who also comments on the ability to alter the density of the bale core. “We can set a soft centre for hay, or a medium or hard centre for silage,” he points out.

Another feature he highlights includes the Comprima's intake. “It has no problem handling the 9m of material in the denser swath made by the Swadro 46, we've never managed to choke it, the tractor will die down first,” he comments, “The EasyFlow pick-up is also really good, leaving nothing behind and it contour follows better than our old balers.”

But Stuart stresses that it is when the Comprima V150XC is used in combination with the KW782 tedder and Swadro 46 rake that the benefits occur. “We now average 60 bales an hour in silage, the combined output of our two previous balers, and 90 – 100 bales an hour has been achieved in a good bout of hay,” he says. “Also we now have the benefit of being able to produce different size bales. Although we haven't done any specific costings, the operation is more cost-effective; one man is on the tedder and rake, and one on the baler, previously one man was on the Haybob and two were on balers. We've eliminated a baler and all its associated costs.”