balers choice users ?

[James]

been talking this over recently with the local dealer seems to be more people using it tho locally only on big square balers.
any users on here care to share their experiences good or bad? in straw and hay would you know it had been treated at the point of use?
tia

 

[Partstech]

Can't take from customers point of view,but as a supplier I have quoted a customer this week for an IBC .

 

[Mark C]

Have used it in the past on
Small and big bales with varying degrees of success. There's no substitute for sunshine. Don't for one minute think you are going to make 'hay' at 30% mc. The crates at which you have to apply it at the upper end of it's limit make it prohibitively expensive and you are better off wrapping it
Works ok when hay is borderline but I wouldn't want to use it regularly over 20% moisture as the bales get heavy or slack if you wind the pressure off to compensate.

Horsey Customers aren't over keen on the smell if you deliver it fresh. It does go off a bit in the stack. Horses don't mind it tho.

 

[James]

They told me that at 22% moisture it'll cost £1.10/round bale this was in straw.

 

[Andrew]

We have a baler with an applicator on it.
Only ever used the genuine stuff.
If you bale any hay with it, stack it and then don't touch it for 4 weeks, if you move it in that time it goes black.
It's to expensive to use on straw - you need to put more on than they say for it to be any good, and it still tests wet with a tester - it stops the mould growing, doesn't dry it, so if you supply a factory / power station then it's no good.
They say it's non corrosive but it is a little - enough to strip the paint off the baler.

As I said, we have the kit, and 400ltrs of stuff, and not used it for 3 years. Wouldn't recommend it.

 

[jhorr30]

we use Biotal solomaize on our square baler. we apply it at double the rate that it would be used on maize silage.
Think its 2l of mixed product per ton.
Works out less than 50p per 8x4x3 bale.
It is applied at a flat rate and we only use it if required. ie bit of green left in straw or undersown/slightly damp straw.
It wont stop it heating if wet but will stop moulds forming and it turning the bale into a solid brick.

 

[nick channer]

Used it lot last yr
Have 1000 litre container bought at begining season still remains unopened
Found horses wouldn't eat it if they had bales that didn't have any on
Was good in wheat straw baleing at 20%
No cakey bales at all
Would imagine there wouldn't be enough money in job doing straw in big bale

 

[Andyrob]

Have seen square bales done with it in wheat James local to me

Was 70 bales of wheat and 30 went mouldy and like blocks

Seems to me that it's hit n miss

 

[James]

right so the replies so far are more or less what my gut was telling me
@Andrew there is a man near me got some hay baled with it not just ready but rain was due and a few days later there was serious heat coming off the bales - i'll get a word with him soon to hear it from the horses mouth
@Andyrob according to salesman a crowd I know uses it on straw up to 30% moisture don't know what they come out like

 

[Andyrob]

well this was wheat straw turned day before and same day as was baled, now the sensor showed it coming into baler at 17-22% and it was not great

 

[Roy Stokes]

We were early into this, the "Profitable Farming Company" fitted the automatic applicator and set it up, most of the hay made spoiled, as mentioned above you need to apply almost double to achieve any decent result
We had some very upset customers so we invited the PCF to take a look at the produce and speak to our customers, excuses from the PCF managing director ranged from " your haybob is crap (plausable) to "Claas have changed the design of the packer arm on your 2200 without informing us" (bulls**t) our Claas Liner 780 rake was blamed for producing a lumpy swath ( probably one of the best rakes I have baled behind )and all sorts of other excuses were banded about.
We squared things with our customers and the PCF were ordered off our farm.
A baling contractor in Yorkshire was much further in and is reputed to have settled out of court to the tune of 30k.

Don't expect any help from PCF if things don't work out

 

[Chae1]

These guys seem confident in it. They are a reputable company and don't mess around. Is it the same product?

http://www.burdenbros.co.uk/contractors/baling-and-propionic-acid

 

[Roy Stokes]

These guys seem confident in it. They are a reputable company and don't mess around. Is it the same product?

http://www.burdenbros.co.uk/contractors/baling-and-propionic-acid

I note they quote hay up to 24% moisture, I am pretty confident the PCF used to quote up to 30%
22% was enough IMO

 

[Badshot]

These guys seem confident in it. They are a reputable company and don't mess around. Is it the same product?

http://www.burdenbros.co.uk/c

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/news/fire-crews-tackling-huge-sheppey-5416/

 

[Speedstar]

We have a full auto hay boss system on a baler and it works very well up to 30% in both hay & straw but we only use Biotal products , only draw back is once mixed up the product only keeps for 24 to 36 hours

 

[nick channer]

Good thing with balers choice is it has lifetime shelf life
(Supposedly)

 

[wdah/him]

used here one year, very dear for hi moisture straw, home made applicator-used for silage addiditive worked fine for balers choice. hand held moisture meter to check swaths-one off so not going to get robbed for full kit, spray bar alone was over 300 quid(no pump etc). leave well allone, it is very hit and miss, as the day got on i slacked the baler off, all was sold it was the year of forage shortage.

 

[James]

leave well alone would seem to be the consensus then and tbh I've come to that conclusion too. could be lucky and things work fine or could end up with a real mess. think i'll keep the money and not bother

 

[Goweresque]

I've used it for 4 seasons now, started with a new fully automatic applicator on my small baler, and after the 2012 monsoon added a second hand automatic system to my big baler. Wouldn't try and make hay without it now. Gives you a far bigger weather window to hit, allowing you to bale when its not quite there and rains on its way, or merely by giving you a backstop allows you to have the confidence to mow and get the hay naturally if the weather improves.

I think the problems arise from people trying to penny pinch - you need to be generous with the acid, if you under apply you will get into trouble. I started using the Balers Choice but found their prices a bit steep @ over £500 for a 205l drum, and have moved to Perstorp's ProSid M700, which is virtually identical - buffered propionic acid, but at under £300 per drum. If anything I think the ProSid does a better job than the Balers Choice, but that might just be my imagination.

I have baled hay with it at over 30% moisture, in 2012 just to get it off the field really. And while it wasn't the best hay ever made, it wasn't total rubbish either, and have been slowly selling it ever since to price conscious buyers, who have fed it with no problems.

I don't know whether the fact I use an Arcusin packer has any bearing on the success I've had with it, but it could be a factor. The packs are squeezed tight before being strung and thus air is expelled, and I have solid bales to start with, so the environment inside the pack is quite tightly sealed, and this may aid the ability of the acid to stop the hay going off, despite heating (which it will do even with the acid - the point of the acid is to kill the bugs and moulds that cause the runaway heating and eventual combustion of damp baled hay).

In short its a system that can and does work, but its not a panacea, and it takes a while to come to terms with what it can and can't do, and how best to utilise it. But as I said at the beginning, I would be without it now.

 

[Roy Stokes]

I think one of the problems with the auto system is where it senses the moisture, the star wheels are running behind the knotters, anyone who has used a big baler with moisture meter will know that when hay or straw is not fit the moisture content shown will fluctuate wildly, when fit it holds much steadier.
Our applicator was set to apply 1 litre/ton at all times then rising to 2/litres/ton when moisture content was above 20%, this was set by the Profitable Farming Company.
The bales could have 6 inches of material in them above 20% with only 1 litre/ton on it.
We reset the applicator to run at 2 litres/ tonne at all times and 3 litres above 20% and results were much better, however the cost was then prohibitive, you may as well just wrap the bales, and also you can then store them anywhere