Making Cornstalk Bales | Chopping, Raking, Baling and Hauling
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- Many of you have asked to see footage of making cornstalk bales. Here it is! In this video you will see the the whole process of chopping, raking, baling, and hauling.
Thanks to Riley Reck for capturing in-cab footage of chopping stalks!
Great video Carl. I enjoy watching all your videos especially the ones on your farm.
Thanks Larry!
You guys are great.
That is a slick trailer. Loved the drone footage. I love Iowa at harvest time.
Thanks Rob!
Nice bale dumper. Saves time handling them twice. Good invention!
It’s really slick! The only time it doesn’t work good is if the bales are a little wet on the bottom from ground contact and they don’t want to slide on the rails very well. Also, it makes a new wet spot because they land bottoms up...
Nice video Carl , that was a sweet trailer
Wow, i never saw this type of bale trailer. It looks nice👍
Great video.thanks for posting.greetings from uk
Thanks for another great video Carl. Your videos have got me hooked on farming videos.
Thanks! I’m really glad you enjoy them!
That trailer is nice!
Great video
Love your videos Carl. 'Always enjoy watching them. And that bale trailer is too cool. I've never seen that type before, Looks like it works pretty good for short, low speed hauls.
Thanks Tim! That trailer is great!
That is a cool trailer! Thanks for sharing.
Really liked the trailer and how it unloaded all the bales a once. I can see with all the weight how it would be a problem pushing to bales on from the back.
It is so slick! Really saved me a lot of time hauling stalk bales.
your right, sweet trailer
That was so interesting, i liked the bale trailer.
It’s a really nice rig!
Great video, really enjoy your channel
Thanks!
Great video we do cornstalks Beals aswell in Ontario Canada.
I raik it right after the combin. And beling it with a new Holland beler with a rotor cut. we use it for bedding the heifers it works great.
Thanks Adrian! New holland makes a good baler.
Sweet trailer
Best intro I’ve seen, made me sub before I watched the vlog 😂
Thanks Michael!
liked this video !! thanks .
You are making some good vidge maybe we can see more of yall soon good luck on this channel
Thanks Jeff! I do my best to put out a video every week. Let me know if you have any questions!
OK! So now we want to know how that baler works. It is pretty easy to imagine how it rolls the hay (or stalks) up, but how does it wrap and seal the bale and how do you know when the bale is full size? I'd love to see the ejector in action, too. Maybe too late for this season, but please keep it in mind for the next.
Good idea! I’ll get some in depth round baler explanation done next time we roll up hay. Thanks for watching!
Karl, as your channel continues to grow I know you will reach a point you can't answer every question BUT please consider these:
1) Love the drone shots. Do you also have LIDAR on your drone so you can measure water density of your fields?
2) what happens to soiled bedding? Compost? Burn?
3) storage safety. Do you have big old snow shoes for when you must enter the silo? Do you wear a harness to prevent falling thru a pocket?
4) What's on the rear window of the tractor? Is it defroster coil or receiver antenna?
Love your farm, I watch from Toledo Ohio.
Great questions!
1) Thanks! The drone I run is a DJI mavic air. It is completely stock so it’s just for photos and video. It has some pretty cool auto flight capabilities though. I use the object tracing all the time to keep the camera focused on the machinery while I can’t run both at the same time.
2) The “used” bedding gets loaded up and hauled back out onto the fields where we grow our crops. Here is a link to a video from last fall. ua-cam.com/video/Oe4SZIHQpGo/v-deo.html
3) We really avoid getting in a grain storage bin after any grain has been unloaded from it. If we have to, there are always at least two of us present and we do have a harness. Usually we don’t have a need to climb around on the pile.
4) Yup! The back window of the 6140R has defrost wires embedded in the glass.
I'm a "Transplant" to Iowa and your videos are interesting, entertaining and very informative. Some things you mentioned in previous videos that I'd like to hear more about:
Tiles and tile flags I'm guessing are related to field drainage. How does that work and how does it get built and maintained?
When you harvested beans it looked like the harvester was moving at an angle to the rows not in perfect alignment to the rows like the corn harvester did. Why?
When you applied pig manure to a field there was large reels and hoses used. Is this owned by the farmer or is it rented? Is pig manure only used on farms that raise pigs?
When you say you work full time farming jobs how (without getting your deep into your private affairs) does that work?
Who decides and how do they decide what to plant and where to plant it - corn vs beans vs hay?
Where did you learn to make these videos? The pictures, text and narration are great!
Great questions! Here is a video answer to your question about the soybeans. It’s currently unlisted and I can’t remember why I took it down. You can click the link and it should work. The real answer starts at 3:30.
Why do farmers combine soybeans at an angle? Soybean Harvest 2018! ua-cam.com/video/Yz_WaFKZzbo/v-deo.html
I’ll reply to a few more of your questions soon. And some of them will probably become videos...
Carl, again you do a great, compact, well told story. I know this is not your real job but keep them coming as you do.
How often is the outdoor bedding removed? Guessing fairly often like after a snow storm/rain or is more just added on top? Then it goes back to the field, right? Once we told our young grandchildren the big round bales wrapped in white plastic were huge marshmallows that had just been harvested and were ready to the factory to be cut up into regular and mini marshmallows. Grandfathers are allowed to tell stories like that!.
I love the marshmallow story! 😂
The pile gets fresh stalks every couple days. The cows tend to have their favorite place to lay every night and the cow pies accumulate there so we spread fresh dry stalks on top again. How often we do this depends a lot on weather because if it’s really nice they will just lay out in the grass. If it rains a lot or snows we have to do it more often. There are two reasons we let it build up instead of cleaning it down to cement every few days. The stalks and cow pies underneath start to compost and create heat. This makes it more comfortable to lay on in the cold and helps the top layer stay dry. Secondly, the padding from the pile is nice to lay on. If we scraped it down to concrete every time it got dirty we would have to use a lot more cornstalks to make a comfortable soft spot to lay. This way we just need to use enough to keep the top of the pile clean and dry. Thanks for asking!
Here’s what happens to the “used” bedding. ua-cam.com/video/Oe4SZIHQpGo/v-deo.html
To say the least I am impressed with this goose neck trailer for hauling round bales, just how are you able , i.e. one man to tilt the skids/platform with seven rounds bales loaded on, have no idea the approximate weight of each bale. Is it countered weighted, off set or what? Please provide a little info on the principles of the mechanism or workings of how this unloading device works. Thanks, another enjoyable video!
Yes for sure. The hinge is centered directly under the row of bales. The trailer works best if it is on fairly level ground. When you swing the lever away from the side of the trailer it unhooks the latch mechanism that keeps the trailer upright. It doesn’t take much force lifting up on that 4 foot long lever to get the tilt started.
Hi. You guys are so resourceful !! Using all parts from a crop of corn. Do you worry about pesticides used on corn crops, how it might be affecting your cows? Thru skin absorption or eating of the product. I don't know that much of large farming production. Peace to you and yours
Thanks for watching! Our last trip across the corn with the sprayer is late May or early June. The plants are less than 10 inches tall at the time. The only thing that happens after that is some fields are selected to be sprayed with a fungicide at tassel time to prevent plant disease. This is not a concern for livestock. Thanks for asking!
What you could do with the wet stalks is windrow it, if it will, let the top dry then turn the windrow to dry the bottom side then bale quick before it rains or snows. Cheers...
That’s what I would have done in a normal year. We were going to get rain and snow the next day and the ground was muddy underneath so every time we would rake up more mud. Thanks for stopping to say hi!
In Northern California the feed lots and dairys use rice hulls for bedding
I bet that makes nice bedding!
👍👍
Spreading out the corn stalks: I noticed that the previous layer of corn stalks had cow pies. I understand keeping the pies because they’re going to be fertilizer. So here’s my question - won’t the pies eventually make it to the top and mix with the fresh stalks, especially if it rains? If the corn stalks are, uh, loaded, is that clean enough for the cows?
Good question Helen! The pile gets fresh stalks every couple days. The cows tend to have their favorite place to lay every night and the cow pies accumulate there so we spread fresh dry stalks on top again. How often we do this depends a lot on weather because if it’s really nice they will just lay out in the grass. If it rains a lot or snows we have to do it more often. The re are two reasons we let it build up instead of cleaning it down to cement every few days. The stalks and cow pies underneath start to compost and create heat. This makes it more comfortable to lay on in the cold and helps the top layer stay dry. Secondly, the padding from the pile is nice to lay on. If we scraped it down to concrete every time it got dirty we would have to use a lot more cornstalks to make a comfortable soft spot to lay. This way we just need to use enough to keep the top of the pile clean and dry. Thanks for asking!
Just remember to keep your head out of the way when you dump the bales. Cock the truck slightly angled, neutral on an automatic, reverse on a standard shift and set the parking brake and it works great.
I’ve certainly thought about how much it would hurt to take that bar to the face when the trailer goes over. Not good. My truck is a manual so I put it in low range 4x4 and stick it in first gear because it‘s a bit lower gear than reverse.
Just a question why don’t you cut the corn lower with the combine and cut out an operation.
Good question! We only bale just a handful of acres each year. Even running the head down further it would still be best to chop them up a little more before taking. Some corn heads have choppers underneath but ours doesn’t. Thanks for asking!
Could you please explain the difference of a chopping and a non chopping corn head? Thanks Carl
Thanks good idea!
A chopping corn head has blades like a lawn mower that cuts stalks off about 6" above the ground and grinds up remaining into a fine residue. A non chopping head just pulls the stalk straight down and folds the stalk over. So it leaves alot of stalk in tact above the ground.
Benjamin Stern good explanation! I’ll try to get some footage of both types.
Some bass fishermen use a shallow water anchoring device they call power poles. I wonder if you could add a simpler version of that to the front of that trailer to take the stress off the truck.
Unfortunately, sticking a power pole in a lake bed is a whole lot easier than getting one into a frozen corn field.
I’ve been thinking about ways the trailer could solve the problem. The best solution is holding the brake pedal down in the truck. The trailer has electric brakes which helps.
Dodge Brothers Farm and Ranch maybe a spiked wheel chock? Could be easy to fab and store. My earlier idea, even a simpler version, clearly has limits that others have pointed out.
Mark Palmer is like it if the trailer manufacturers would put an s-cam style manual wheel lock on the trailer wheels.
Do you ever have any unroll as soon as you take the netwrap off? Or do you cut the wrap with the bake on end?
I’ve been experimenting with different methods. The last one i cut open the net wrap on the bottom and just drove around and shook it a bit. I ended up with about 3/4 of the bale left on the spears. Our skidloader attachment has two long spears spaced like pallet forks. It works pretty good!
Do a lot of farmers bale corn stocks
Around here it’s mainly just the guys that have cattle. Hardly anyone bales them to sell.
Hey, Carl, Great video! What drone do you use? Is your brother operating the drone while you drive the combine?
Thanks Steve! I have a DJI Mavic Air. A lot of times I’m just letting the drone fly itself. It has object tracking so I can select the combine on the screen and tell it to follow and pan left or right. It’s a pretty nice little rig for the money.
What happens to all the used corn stalks bedding?
Hey Brian good question! We put it back where we got it. Here is a video of that process.
ua-cam.com/video/Oe4SZIHQpGo/v-deo.html
What model John Deere tractor did you use in this video? I am in the market looking for 100hp with 80+ PTO hp.
I was using a 6140R which would be overkill for you. I’d look for a 6230 or a 6430. They should be just what you are after!
Use a windrower on them fluffs them to dry better
Weird that I’ve never seen anyone so that. I don’t know if it would pick up anything except the stubs that it was cutting. Have you tried it?
Good show learn something new about farming thanks
Could you put another bale or two in front of the truck
I never thought of that! That’s kinda brilliant...
Count the day lost when you can’t learn something new! Value added to residue...
The residue definitely is better plant food when we put it back on the field after the cows have “used” it!
First
Good job 👏
I've never heard of a flail called "batwing" TIL.
I’ve never heard a batwing called a flail 🤣
you're saying you have screwed again this year, not a happy wife, and not happy cows lol
All are happy now!
You lost me when you started playing music
Sorry, I like the approiate music!
Sorry you don’t like the music jack. It’s a struggle to incorporate drone footage without using music because the silence is awkward.