Making Hay and Silage with a Gehl Forage Harvester (1949)

good morning [Music] today with the ever increasing demand for dairy and farm products Farms throughout the country have been turning to mechanization in order to do a better job of conserving feed values and Manpower while the raising of cattle and the production of dairy products forage is the most important feed grown constituting the larger part of their food despite rapid advantages of farm machinery for varied purposes the harvesting of hay and Sandage has been the least mechanized of Major Farm operations the big remaining toil and sweat job the Gale forage Harvester does away with the hard labor of haying and tidal filling as we shall see in the following unposed farming operations by typical everyday users for more than a half century the Gale plant its engineers and workers at West Bend Wisconsin Builders of Gale forage Hollisters Silo fillers and Hammer Mills have specialized in the manufacture of outstanding machinery for silage making and feed shopping Gale forage harvesting equipment includes a main unit consisting of the chopper and Main feeder the various attachments for hay and salad can be fitted to this here we see the machine with hay pickup attached as used for making hay or grass silence having its own engine assures constant operation at full capacity regardless of the speed at which it is drawn or the limitations of the tractor the finger roll is driven by chain from one of the ground wheels so as to maintain its speed in proportion to the rate of travel and here is the machine with a row crop attachment as used for making solids from standing corn sugar cane and so forth the raw crop attachment is completely power driven all gears on this and the main unit are enclosed and run in oil this is the blower used for elevating Into The Silo and for blowing hay into the barn this model is adapted printively to unloading from the rear of the wagon though of course it can be used for side unloading also we'll demonstrate it later there are three principal ways of curing the hay crop field curing Barn curing and as graft silence in making grass silage the hay is cut and windrowed immediately allowed to wilt slightly then picked up and chopped as you see here another way is to fit the Harvester with a cutter bar to cut and chop the standing grass this obviously saves one operation but it limits the overall performance to the width of the cutter bar silage made from unwilted grass is quite wet a great deal of the juice leeches out of The Silo and runs over the Barnyard resulting in some feed loss especially when molasses has been added allowing the grass to wilt down to about 65 moisture content result in good grass silage without the addition of any preservative this method has been followed at the beltville experiment station for years any styling either grass or corn should be cut clean and comparatively short so it will pack well and cure well in the silo The Cutting and feeding mechanism used in the Gale forage Harvester was developed especially for clean cutting and has been used for many years in the Gale tidal filler here is one way of adding molasses first it is diluted with water so that it will flow freely then the valve is set to deliver the desired amount in about the time required to unload a regular gear pump unit given by the machine can be used to draw the Molasses direct from the barrel this operator is probably using a little less than the usual amount but the Alfalfa has been wilted somewhat so the proportion of molasses per ton is not critical that is how grass silage is made now let's look into the proposition of making dry Haze both by field curing as usual and with the recently developed mall or Barn dryers the handling operations in Mao drying are the same as in regular field curing the forage Harvester picks up the windows chops the hay and blows it into the wagon then it is taken to the barn and spread over the drying ducts by means of the forage blower the dryer itself consists of a series of air ducts built on the floor of the mouth and a power driven fan which forces the air through the duct and upward through the hay it has dried in the field only long enough to reduce the moisture content to about 30 to 35 percent sometimes only a few hours in the field is sufficient in this condition the hay is still quite tough and we can be handled with a minimum of leaf shattering sit together with the lessened hazard of weather damage results in a higher average quality than the average of sealed cured hay the forage Harvester used for putting up the hay crop means a substantial saving in man hours studies made by the Department of Agriculture and by the University of Wisconsin indicated saving in man-hours of about one-third as compared with the usual loader and pay for for slings the daily capacity of course depends on the yield per acre size of the crew and the length of fall with the moderate Hall a crew would consist of the operator and two drivers where the wagonists trailed behind the Harvester or three where the wagon is driven alongside this would provide for one wagon loading one going or coming and one unloading such a crew should put up from 20 to 30 tons of dry hay per day there seems to be no great advantage in running the truck alongside in fact we like the idea of a trailer like this one the deflector can be set to blow straight to the back so the load builds forward without much attention on the part of the operator and there is latitude enough to avoid spilling even when rounding the ends the cover and Screen around the sides also prevents weight is usually cut rather caught the cutter is set for a theoretical length of one and one half to two inches resulting in an average actual length of about double that figure the idea is to avoid pulverizing the leaves and in the case of malcoling to avoid packing so close as prevent-free circulation of air sizes of windrows vary even in the same field that's why the pickup is geared To The Ground by being driven from the wheel the operator drives fast on a small window slower on a larger one accommodating his speed to the capacity of the machine some of these windrows are doubled up just for a demonstration you can see from this why we like to equip the machine with its own engine instead of using a power takeoff having its own motor the operation of the chopper is independent of the rate of travel its speed is always the same and full capacity and tons per hour is maintained whether the machine travels fast or slow in the case of power takeoff Drive the speed of the takeoff is always in proportion to the ground speed when the tractor slows down the capacity slows down too the separate engine eliminates this variation the forage Harvester is just as convenient for Gathering and storing straw left on the field by the combine as it is for hay the mouth will hold two or three times as much chopped as it would have along and the space saved often provide room to store the straw for bedding instead of leaving it outside in a few hours this whole field was clean the straw chopped and in the barn it makes better bedding than long straw it doesn't get kicked out of place very easily so it lasts longer after Field Shopping the Hayes Hall to the barn and blown in no man is needed in the mall and there are different ways of handling the unloading some Farmers have built unloaders in the form of traveling aprons like those used in manure spreaders some running lengthwise for rear unloading some like this one crosswise for side unloading in the case of barn drying chopping and blowing is the only practical way the uncured hay has to be spread evenly without being cramped or packed the blower can do this long hay has to be spread by hand this is the same Harvester you saw picking up the big hay windows the hay pickup has been removed and the corn attachment substituted when used with a self unloading wagon it speeds up Silo filling and does away with nearly all of the hard work corn or cane goes into The Silo clean it never touches the ground requirements of the Harvester working on row crops include large capacity the ability to handle any corn whether it is tall short straight crooked or Tangled to leave the field clean and to produce clean cut styling the kind that packs well and cures well in the silo this gives you an idea of how the Gale Rogue crop attachment works spiral gatherers pick up and hold the stock upright until the sickle cuts it off a gathering chain sweeps the cut end back to the feeder and the stocks are drawn in butt first and chopped here again is where the self-powered feature comes in handy silage yield from row crop varies all the way from 5 to 30 tons per acre in light yield the operator can drive fat while in heavy yields like this one he can adjust his speed to suit always maintaining good capacity and tons per hour this corn stands about 14 feet high this corn has been bent over by a heavy storm notice how it has to be picked up here we have the FB 48 Gale forage blower designed especially for unloading from the rear of the wagon it has easily removable wheels and draw bar and a feeder that can be raised or lowered each wheel and axle assembly is held in place by one pin removing the wheels makes it unnecessary to sink them the weight of the feeder is mostly counterbalanced by the heavy Springs so it is not hard to raise or lower the advantage of course is in getting the feeder up out of the way so the incoming wagon can drive right through foreign the reach or Draw bar like the wheel assemblies is also held in place with removable pins if the wagon is to be driven through it must be removed now let's watch the blower in actual operation the feeder is up out of the way so the wagon can drive through a few feet past the field the feeder is then dropped the wagon backed into position and the end gate opens this wagon box and unloader was built by the operator it is equipped with a fault end gate at the front which pushes the load toward the rear the electric motor and speed reducer is a commercial unit since the feed would tumble off in large chunks it is necessary for the man to control it to keep a steady flow into the feeder as shown here the blower is handling corn silage hay would be handled in the same way the feeder is long enough to reach all the way across the back of the wagon and is equipped with a large auger feeder these blowers are big enough to elevate either hay or styling as fast as it is likely to be unloaded they will handle silage at the rate of 30 to 40 tons per hour if you can feed it evenly at that rate the large blower drum assures big capacity at moderate speed in this particular operation the electrically powered speed reducer turns a shaft at the back of the wagon box the shaft winds up a pair of cables which in turn move the fault end gate and the load to the back this operator does the work on his own farm and uses the outfit for custom work as well he puts up around 500 Acres of hay and filled about 30 silos each year he gets the work done fast and saves a lot of hard labor foreign this sample of Steel dried hay put up with a gale forage Harvester is about average for texture and quality it was rained on so it is not as bright as it might otherwise be this is molecued hay it is somewhat greener than the Field Drive the farmer who produced it prizes it so highly that he grinds it through his hammer Mills and uses it in his concentrate mixture foreign here is the finished grass molasses silage that you saw being made earlier in the picture the brown color is characteristic it contains a higher proportion of the original vitamins and proteins than either of the cured Haze and is strongly recommended by the experiment station it should be chopped fine so it will pack well and here is the regular corn silage which has proved it's worth over the years notice the Clean Cut appearance fine clean cut silage packs well in The Silo avoiding undesirable air pockets and cured well air pockets cause mold spots here are all four steel cured hay mouth cured hay Alfalfa molasses silage and corn silage all made with a gale for each Hollister conserving higher feed values at a substantial saving in human labor foreign

Channel: Ikon Sees Mr No

Views: 75,360

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Id: GHr1cgCCJ1s

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023