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Baling beans....

4K views 12 replies 7 participants last post by  Tx Jim 
#1 ·
Fellow across the way just stopped by with a problem/idea.

Seems he has 17 acres of beans right by the Miss. river and the river is rising such that his ground will probably be flooded by Sunday.

Beans are soft enough right now that they can be split with your finger nail. The stems are pretty green and beans are at 80% moisture.

His idea is to mow, rake, bale them with a round baler, then move them to higher ground and run them through his combine.

What's your all thoughts about this? Can the bean stalks be baled? Will a round bale crush the bean?

Other thoughts?

Ralph
 
#2 ·
I try at least one or two, loosen up the pressure, maybe even spread one out inside/outside with no rain. Maybe cut the net / twine inside to relieve pressure / moisture. What would I lose, some net / twine, the beans are lost anyhow.

Worse case scenario, it worked and I only did two rolls, end up breaking my leg kicking myself somewhere.

If crop insured, could be problematic however.

Larry
 
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#4 ·
Agreed if no crop insurance it's worth a try. I would guess they would get hot. I know when we rented out baggers, you go to pick them up after guys pull them out of the bag seal the bag. Then sometimes they let the bagger sit there till we got there 8 to 12 hours later with the tunnel packed full of wet feed like you are talking about and when you clean the tunnel out of its steam that bad you couldn't see and if you touch the steel on the tunnel with the hands you would burn your hands...... I know we had beans a couple times that got an early Frost at that stage and we caut them and baled them and wrap them, and got real good value out of them in the TMR
 
#5 ·
I baled beans years ago when we had to replant after the cotton crop burned up in drought, and the only thing that would grow in the fields was beans considering the cotton herbicides we had out there. Made hay to feed my cows after the drought. Thought maybe it'd make a crop of beans if so I'd combine them and buy hay, but if they didn't look like they'd make a good crop of beans I'd just cut and bale them for hay. They were looking really good but then the armyworms started moving in and so I just cut them because I didn't want to have to spray several times to make the crop.

THey'll bale just fine... If you're going to bale them wet, I'd move them right onto the high ground and unroll them right away, and let them dry "in the windrow" after you unroll the bean hay. That should let the bean plants and pods dry down "naturally" and then you can pick them up with a windrow pickup on the combine... Sorta like small grains cut with a windrower. Probably lose a lot of beans when combining, but it's better than losing the entire crop.

You cannot leave it rolled up at that high of a moisture without it heating up, ruining the beans, and rotting. If you can't unroll it basically as soon as it's baled and then pick it up later with the combine once it's dried down, then I'd forget about it...

Later! OL J R :)
 
#12 ·
I wouldn't think an equip barn 70X100 would be enough space to roll out many rd bales. Plus with no sunshine and lack of air movement beans would take a long/long time to dry down to a good moisture content.
His thought was to run them through the combine before putting them in the shed. Then to run 4" drain perforated drain tile under the beans connected to a bit fan that would push outside air through the beans.

Ralph
 
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