Single-Pass Baling of Corn Stover

Abstract

A single-pass corn grain and stover harvester was produced by coupling a combine harvester and a towed large-round baler. An accumulation hopper and metering system were added to the baler to allow for continuous collection of stover through the bale wrapping and ejection cycles. Both the accumulation metering system and the baler were powered hydraulically by the combine. When harvesting with an ear-snapper header at an average rate of 5.6 ha h-1 and stover collection rate of 1.4 Mg ha-1, combine fuel use was increased by an average of 11% over baseline operation without the baler. Bale dry densities of 164 to 206 kg m-3 were achieved with this configuration. The accumulator and feed system capacity were more than sufficient to handle the mass flow collected with the ear-snapper header, so while harvesting grain the baler was only operated for 38% of the total harvest time. When using a whole-plant header to achieve average stover collection rates of 4.5 Mg ha-1, combine area capacity was reduced by more than 50% and the accumulator feed system was less effective at unloading the long stalks collected. Increasing the aggressiveness of the combine residue chopper reduced the hopper unloading time by 69%, but the additional size reduction also increased combine fuel use by 7%.