Farm Machinery Question...

Tractor and discbines

I don't often post on Saturdays, but as I started to reply to a question asked about the farm machinery, it was taking up entirely too much space in the comments section. I decided to put this into a separate post, in case anyone else is interested.

So, in the comment's section of Wednesday's post, Nancy wrote,  "This former farmgirl is curious about the apparatus on the front of the tractor. It doesn't look like a loader. Do you have any idea what it is?" After discussing it with Mr. C., who seems to be an veritable encyclopedia of knowledge of all things related to farm machinery, I have the following information to add:

The apparatus on the front of the tractor is a discbine. There are three of those - one on the front and two others, one on each side. I had thought that it was a 'just' a mower and that the other thing was a crusher. When I said that to Mr. C., he responded, 'Pffft, that is SO yesterday!'  Okay, fine. So... the three things you see mounted to the tractor are called discbines. They cut and condition (fracture the stems so that they will dry faster) the hay in one operation. The tractor with attached discbines prices out at about $250,000.  Got some spare change??  They can cut about 40-50 acres an hour with that, and on a big field that doesn't have as many turnarounds, even more than that. It's GPS guided to discbine the field as efficiently and quickly as possible.

But we're not done yet. There are also the mergers and the self-propelled choppers.

 Merger

The merger gathers the dried hay from a 50 foot area and puts it into windrows for chopping.

 Self-propelled chopper

Now that the merger has put the hay in windrows, the self-propelled chopper comes along and chops it and blows it into the truck running alongside. When that truck is full, the next one is ready to take its place.  They will fill one of those trucks in about 4 or 5 minutes.

Incredible world of farm machinery we live in.
 
And now I have to include the cartoon that I'd put in a previous post about harvesting the alfalfa:

 Might this be a less expensive option?

***

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Harvesting the Alfalfa

They're baaaaack!

The monster has returned, to take the alfalfa from the field north of the house. You probably think I'm obsessed with this huge machinery, but it's not only that it does incredible work, but it also does it SO FAST.

So, here's a series of photos that show a couple different operations: The first series shows the alfalfa being cut and crushed (maybe?)

Then the alfalfa is left to dry on the field. After a couple nice sunny, breezy days, they came back again, this time with a couple different outfits: one to merge the rows and another to blow the alfalfa into trucks. This process is so fast, that if I don't hurry up, I can miss it!

Cutting the alfalfa

They cut it before it flowers, 

when its protein levels are highest

So you can see the difference between the cut and the uncut

The alfalfa looks great this year!

After cutting. The cut alfalfa drying

After a couple days of drying

the merger shows up

Think of the music from 'Jaws.'

The operators don't even have time to be annoyed with the lady taking photos. They're so busy operating this equipment, lifting and lowering the arms, etc. (or whatever they're called)

I didn't get a photo of the alfalfa being blown into the trucks, because I was sure I already had it in my photo files. I don't think filing is my strong suit. I would have thought that the word 'alfalfa' would have been in the file name, but who knows...

After a good rain yesterday, the field is ready to grow another crop.

I love the look of the cut field. And honestly, I love the look of that field just about any time!

***

If they'd been thinking, they could have just bought each of the cows one of these!

***

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