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Friday, May 28, 2010

We are supposed to chop this?


This is what grass looks like that will yield 18 ton to the acre of silage! It is chest high on me and I'm 6ft tall. Yikes! We have a 30 year old New Holland 890 silage chopper! I felt better when we had four 890's and two 892's setting in the weeds. Sure they didn't run, but I felt like I had a back-up. Now that I've scrapped them all I feel less secure... Sometimes I wonder if buying a 12ft disk mower was such a good idea?
We are probably a good week away from chopping it. It is very very wet. The sort of boggy field that feels like jello when you jump down from the tractor...

6 comments:

  1. It'll be a challenge alright. Some guys chop silage here too. I don't know what they use for a chopper but putting a 30 foot swath through it with well over 200 hp on the tractor so it must be a good one. Of course they are'nt cutting chest high crops either.

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  2. Good luck with that! Used to run 10' swaths of annual rye through the neighbors 892 with a 200+ hp tractor on the front. Still made it sing!

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  3. I suspect you'll earn every penny on THAT job!

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  4. Well I see you all share my opinion of this job! The opening round will be a challenge as their is no way to take less than a 12foot swath. Actually, it will be the second round as we usually start the field the same way we cut so that we are running over grass on the opening round. Then you turn abound and cut it the opposing directing after you've made a few rounds. This was you don't find crap left in the fencerow with the mower. Of course tires are pretty expensive also.
    On the rest of the field we can just take less of a swath.
    I am worried about the clutch on the power reverser on the chopper. The spare has not been rebuilt... I guess that is what I should be working on.
    I suspect it will make the 2-155 work a little bit.

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  5. 18 ton to the acre and a few pleasant 'what am I doing here!?' moments. Your boggy ground may have different properties than ours, but I'd guess it sucks the same at the spade when you've sunk in up to the differential housing.

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  6. The field is bottomless once you break through the sod. It takes a long cable and a lot of HP to get out. I don't think we will hit the 18ton record as the fellow has not been pumping manure on it 24hrs a day as he once did.
    Sometimes you can see the ground "roll" ahead of you when you drive.

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