Agricultural Balers; an Agriculture Machinery Used To Harvest the Cut or Raked Hay

Ajinkya khedkar
2 min readMay 22, 2021

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Agricultural balers, also known hay balers, is an agricultural machinery used on a large scale in the production and/or landscaping business to flatten out a fresh cut and properly shaped crop to reduce the time in processing and transportation. Agricultural balers are widely used to compress a cut/raked crop, such as silage, salt marsh hay, flax straw, cotton, or hay, into compact bales that are easy to store, handle, and transport. Often times, balers are configured with wedges to dry and store some sort of value-added quality of the crop.

Different types of agricultural balers are available in the market, all of them are used to produce bale in different shapes, such as rectangular, square, round, etc. Square shaped bales are easy to store, handle, and transport, whereas round bales have the advantage of shedding rainwater when they are properly stored outdoors. There are two types of techniques available for round balers, which include dual chains and belts connected by bars. In addition to all of these styles, there is also a newer breed of balers known as the baling press. These balers are called hay presses due to their similarity to the typical handheld baler.

Agriculture balers are made of sheet steel. Belts, wheels/tires, pumps, and hydraulic cylinders are some components that are purchased from different suppliers and assembled in plants to manufacture agriculture balers. Industrial balers are also used in material recycling facilities, primarily for baling plastic, metal, or paper for transport. Agriculture balers are used to save time and money and to reduce the input or labor cost. With increasing production of wheat and other cereals, the demand for agricultural balers is also increasing.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, by 2050 consumers will require 60% more wheat than today. Moreover, in Mexico, the annual crop production of wheat is expected to rise by 35% between 2018 and 2029.

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